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DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

OF  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  AND 

OF  THE  EARLY   REPUBLIC 


.y 


DOMESTIC  ARCHITECTURE 

OF  THE  AMERICAN  COLONIES  AND 

OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 


BY 

FISKE    KIMBALL 


ILLUSTRATED 


NEW   YORK 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1922 


COPYEIGHT,  1922,  BY 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 


Published  November,  1922 


r 


THIS  BOOK  EMBODIES  THE  SUBSTANCE  OF  A  COURSE 
OF  LECTURES  DELIVERED  BY  PROFESSOR  FISKE 
KIMBALL  AT  THE  METROPOLITAN  MUSEUM  OF  ART 
IN  1920,  AND  IS  PUBLISHED  UNDER  THE  AUSPI- 
CES    OF    ITS    COMMITTEE     ON     EDUCATIONAL     WORK 


PREFACE 

In  this  book,  lectures  delivered  at  the  Metropolitan  Museum  during  February 
and  March,  1920,  have  been  elaborated  in  an  effort  to  present  a  comprehensive 
and  accurate  view  ot  the  evolution  of  the  early  American  house. 

A  work  with  aspirations  to  completeness,  even  within  a  limited  field,  involves 
obligation  to  many.  Indebtedness  to  published  works  is  acknowledged  individually 
in  the  notes  and  in  the  legends.  My  thanks  are  here  tendered  to  those  who  have 
generously  helped  me  by  the  gift  or  loan  of  photographs  or  by  calling  attention 
to  special  points:  to  William  Sumner  Appleton,  Henry  W.  Belknap,  Edward  Biddle, 
Charles  Knowles  Bolton,  George  Francis  Dow,  William  C.  Endicott,  C.  F.  Innocent, 
Henry  W^  Kent,  Robert  A.  Lancaster,  Jefferson  M.  Levy,  George  C.  Mason,  Jr., 
Lawrence  Park,  Pleasants  Pennington,  LUrich  B.  Phillips,  and  Edward  Robinson, 
Miss  N.  D.  Tupper,  Mrs.  Austin  Gallagher,  Mrs.  George  F.  Lord,  Mrs.  J.  M. 
Arms  Sheldon,  and  Mrs.  Annie  Leakin  Sioussat — to  two  friends  above  all,  Ogden 
Codman  for  his  constant  and  disinterested  assistance  and  tor  the  freedom  of  his 
unrivalled  collection  of  photographs,  measured  drawings,  and  early  architectural 
books;  Donald  Millar  for  the  use  of  his  drawings  and  for  many  important  sug- 
gestions unselfishly  given. 

The  Boston  Athenaeum,  the  Boston  Public  Library,  the  Essex  Institute,  the 
Harvard  College  Library,  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania,  the  Library  of 
Congress,  the  Library  Company  of  Philadelphia,  the  Maryland  Historical  Society, 
the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology, 
the  New  York  Historical  Society,  the  Pocumtuck  Valley  Memorial  Association, 
and  the  University  of  Mrginia,  as  well  as  Ferdinand  C.  Latrobe,  R.  Clipston 
Sturgis,  and  John  Collins  Warren  have,  now  or  in  the  past,  kindly  permitted  the 
photographing  of  original  material  in  their  possession. 

William  N.  Bates,  Philip  Alexander  Bruce,  W.  G.  Collingwood,  Harold  Donald- 
son Eberlein,  Fairfax  Harrison,  John  H.  Hooper,  John  H.  Latane,  Robert  M. 
Lawrence,  Malcolm  Lloyd,  Jr.,  Moses  Whitcher  Mann,  George  Dudley  Seymour, 
D.  E.  Huger  Smith,  William  G.  Stanard,  Charles  Stearns,  Julius  Herbert  Tuttle, 

vii 


PREFACE 

Edward  V.  Valentine,  and  Walter  Kendall  Watkins,  Miss  Gertrude  Ehrhardt, 
Mrs.  Alice  Waters  Dow,  and  Mrs.  Mary  Owen  Steinmetz,  as  well  as  the  owners  of 
many  of  the  houses  discussed,  have  courteously  answered  inquiries,  often  involving 
much  trouble. 

The  following  authors  and  owners  of  copyright  have  been  generous  enough  to 
give  permission  for  reproduction  of  illustrations  not  available  otherwise:  Miss 
Alice  R.  Huger  Smith,  Mrs.  Clara  Amory  Coolidge,  Messrs.  H.  S.  Cowper,  F.S.A., 
Norman  Morrison  Isham,  George  H.  Policy,  W^illiam  K.  Semple,  Samuel  H.  Yonge, 
The  American  Institute  of  Architects,  The  Association  for  the  Preservation  of  Vir- 
ginia Antiquities,  The  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland  Antiquarian  Society,  The 
Essex  Institute,  The  Medford  Historical  Society,  The  Topsfield  Historical  Society, 
The  Architectural  Book  Publishing  Company,  J.  B.  Lippincott  Company,  Pres- 
ton and  Rounds  Company. 

The  staff  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum  has  given  unfailing  courtesy  and  help. 

Particularly  to  Miss  Winifred  E.  Howe,  who  has  seen  the  book  through  the  press, 

I  owe  much  skilled  and  willing  assistance. 

F.  K. 

University  of  Virginia, 
August  24,  1922. 


Vlll 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


Introduction 

Colonial  Houses  . 

The  Seventeenth  Century 

PRIMITIVE    shelters       . 

frame  houses     . 
houses  of  masonry    . 

The  Eighteenth  Century 

Houses  of  the  Early  Republic 

Chronological  Chart     . 

Notes  on  Individual  Houses 

Index      ..... 


PAGE 
XV 

I 

3 
3 
9 

35 

53 

143 
263 

271 

301 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FIGURE 

I.     Charcoal  burners'  hut,  South  Yorkshire 
2J     Bark-peeler's  hut,  High  Furness 


"Scotch  House"  (Boardman  house),  Saugus,  Massachusetts 

\l.  Whipple  house,  Ipswich,  Massachusetts    .... 

a  Capen  house,  Topsfield,  Massachusetts      .... 

il.  John  Ward  house,  Salem  ...... 

7.  The  Bridgham  house  (" Julien's"),  Boston 

8.  Capen  House,  Topsfield,  Massachusetts.     Plan  and  elev^ations 

9.  Brick  filling  from  the  Ward  house,  Salem 

10.  Moravian  schoolhouse,  Oley  Township,  Pennsylvania 

11.  Rough-cast  ornament  from  the  Browne  house,  Salem 

12.  Door  of  the  Sheldon  house,  Deerfield,  Massachusetts 

13.  Parlor  of  the  Capen  house,  Topsfield 

14.  Stairs  of  the  Capen  house,  Topsfield 

15.  Types  of  New  England  houses 

16.  Bond  Castle  on  Chesapeake  Bay 

17.  Foundations  of  houses  at  Jamestown,  Virginia 

18.  Warren  house.  Smith's  Fort,  Virginia,  as  it  stands  to-day 

19.  Usher  (Royall)  house,  Medforci,  Massachusetts.    Plan,  section,  and  elev 
\Jlo.  Bacon's  Castle,  Surry  County,  Virginia.     Plan  and  elevation,  restored 

21.  Bacon's  Castle        ....... 

22.  Fairfield  (Carter's  Creek),  Gloucester  County,  Virginia 

23.  "The  Slate  House,"  Philadelphia     .... 

24.  The  Province  House,  Boston    ..... 

25.  Peter  Tufts  house,  Medford,  Massachusetts 

26.  Root  framing  of  the  Tufts  house       .... 

27.  William  Penn  ("Letitia")  house,  on  its  original  site  . 

28.  Interior  ot  the  Penn  house        ..... 

29.  Porch  of  the  Sister  House,  Ephrata,  Pennsylvania 

30.  "A  Platform  for  a  Mansion-house" 

31.  Elevation  of  a  town  house        ..... 

32.  Plan  tor  the  Challoner  house,  Newport 
22-  Cliveden,  Germantown,  Pennsylvania 
34.  Hancock  house,  Boston       .      . 
SS-  Mount  Airy,  Richmond  County,  Virginia 
36.  Hutchinson  house,  Boston        ..... 

xi 


ation 


ot  sou 


th  end 


PAGE 

4. 
5 
II 

13 
15 

17 
19 

20 
20 

23 
25 
28 
29 

31 
33 
34 

37 
38 
39 
40 

41 
42 
43 

45 
46 

47 
48 

49 

51 
54 
55 
56 
57 
59 
61 
62 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


PAGE 


9- 

40. 
41. 

42. 


^. 

53- 

54- 

55- 
56. 


i 


i 


37.     Capital  from  the  Hutchinson  house,  Boston 

Strattord,  Westmoreland  County,  \'irginia 

Mount  Pleasant,  Philadelphia 

Plans  of  the  Hancock  house,  Boston 

Examples  of  houses  with  the  H  plan 

Tuckahoe       ..... 
41.     The  Mulberry,  Goose  Creek,  South  Carolina 

44.  Plan  of  Graeme  Park,  Horsham,  Pennsylvania 

45.  Plan  for  the  Ayrault  house,  Newport 

46.  Houses  with  a  transverse  hall 

47.  Houses  with  a  developed  front  hall,  and  a  stair  hall  a 

48.  Plan  from  Palladio,  Book  II,  plate  41 

49.  Houses  with  a  stair  hall  expanded  to  one  side 

50.  Houses  with  a  broad  transverse  hall  free  from  stairs 
Plan  from  Palladio,  Book  II,  plate  j;} 
Monticello.     Plan  for  the  house  and  outbuildings 
Relation  of  outbuildings  to  the  house 
Carter's  Grove        .... 
Diagram  of  a  curb  roof  . 
McPhedris  house,  Portsmouth 


57.  Graeme  Park,  Horsham,  Pennsylvania 

58.  Hancock  house,  Boston.     East  elevation 

59.  Westover,  James  City  County,  Virginia 
lO.  Stenton,  Germantown 
I.  Royall  house,  Medford.     East  front 

62.  Carved  modillion  from  the  Hancock  house,  Boston 

63.  Benjamin  Pickman  house,  Essex  Street,  Salem  . 

64.  Jeremiah  Lee  house,  Marblehead,  Massachusetts 

65.  Rosewell,  Gloucester  County,  Virginia 

66.  Charles  Pinckney  house,  Colleton  Square,  Charleston 
167.  Shirley  Place,  Roxbury,  Massachusetts 

"vbS.  John  Vassal!  (Longfellow)  house,  Cambridge 

69.  Stoneleigh  Abbey,  Warwickshire 

70.  Hooper  house,  Danvers,  Massachusetts     . 

71.  Apthorpe  house.  New  York  City 

72.  Design  for  Monticello      .... 

73.  Design  from  Palladio,  Book  II,  plate  61    . 

74.  Roger  Morris  (Jumel)  house.  New  York  City 

75.  The  doorway  at  Stenton 

76.  The  doorway  at  Cliveden 

77.  Doorway  from  Westfield,  Massachusetts  . 


t  the 


and 


tairs  placed 


rear 


laterally 


Xll 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


84. 
85. 


FIGURE 

78.  Corinthian  capitals  from  the  Hancock  house,  Boston 

79.  The  drawing-room,  Graeme  Park    .... 

80.  Drawing-room  of  the  Miles  Brewton  house,  Charleston 

81.  The  stairs  at  Westover  .... 

82.  The  dining-room,  Monticello. 
Northeast  room  at  Tuckahoe 

The  hall  at  Stratford 

Drawing-room  from  Marmion,  Virginia  . 

86.  Tablet  from  The  British  Carpenter 

87.  Northwest  parlor  at  Carter's  Grove 

88.  The  great  chamber,  Graeme  Park  . 

89.  Room  to  right  of  the  hall,  Jeremiah  Lee  house,  Marblehead 

90.  Mantel  in  room  to  left  of  hall,  Lee  house 

91.  Chimneypiece  from  Swan's  British  Architect  (1745),  plate  51 

92.  Console  from  chimneypiece  of  parlor  mantel  in  the  Brice  house,  .Annapolis 

93.  Chimneypiece  from  Swan's  British  Architect,  plate  50 

94.  Chimneypiece  in  the  Council  Chamber,  Wentworth  house,  Little  Harbor 

95.  Chimneypiece  from  Kent's  Design  of  Inigo  Jones,  plate  64 

96.  The  stairs  at  Graeme  Park     ...... 

97.  The  stairs  at  Tuckahoe.  ...... 

98.  The  stairs  at  Cliveden  ....... 

99.  The  stairs  of  the  Jeremiah  Lee  house  .... 
100.  Details  of  stairs  and  stair-window  in  the  Hancock  house  . 
loi.  Stairs  from  the  Hancock  house  as  now  set  up  . 

102.  The  parlor  at  Westover  ...... 

103.  Details  of  hall  ceiling  in  the  Chase  house,  .Annapolis 

104.  The  parlor  at  Kenmore  ...... 

105.  Design  for  a  ceiling  from  Langley's  City  and  Country  Builder  s  and  JVorkmans  Tri 

of  Designs      ....... 

106.  Chimneypiece  in  the  saloon,  Kenmore 

107.  West  parlor,  Jerathmeel  Peirce  (Nichols)  house,  Salem 

108.  John  Reynolds  (Morris)  house,  Philadelphia    . 

109.  Plans  of  the  Woodlands,  Philadelphia,  as  remodelled 

1 10.  Plans  of  the  Harrison  Gray  Otis  house,  45  Beacon  Street,  Boston 

111.  Plans  of  the  Van  Ness  house,  Washington 

112.  Designs  for  the  Hunnewell  (Shepley)  house,  Portland 

113.  Sketch  for  the  Markoe  house,  Philadelphia 

1 14.  Study  for  remodelling  the  Governor's  Palace,  Williamsburg 

115.  Plan  of  the  Villa  Rotonda  for  .Almerico  .... 

116.  Study  for  a  Governor's  house  in  Richmonil 

117.  Study  for  the  Government  House,  New  York  City   . 

xiii 


PAGE 
108 
109 
III 
I  12 

IIj 

H5 
116 

117 

118 

119 

120 
1 22 

123 
124 
125 
126 
127 
128 
129 
130 

131 
132 

^33 

134 
^3.S 


■36 


139 
140 

147 
148 

149 
150 

151 
152 

K7 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


23  • 
24. 

26. 


FIGURE 

18.  "Plan  of  a  mansion  for  a  person  of  distinction" 

19.  Accepted  plan  for  the  President's  house,  Washington 

20.  Barrell  house,  Charlestown,  Massachusetts 

21.  Jonathan  Mason  house,  Boston       .... 

22.  Swan  house,  Dorchester,  Massachusetts  . 
Swan  house,  Dorchester  ..... 
Gore  house,  Waltham,  Massachusetts.     Garden  front 
Design  tor  a  country  house    ..... 
Plan  of  the  Russell  house,  Charleston 

27.  David  Sears  house,  Boston      ..... 

28.  Robert  Morris  house.  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia 

29.  The  Octagon,  Washington      ..... 

30.  Van  Ness  house,  Washington.     Front  elevation 

31.  Competitive  design  for  the  President's  house,  Washington 

32.  Elevation  ot  the  Villa  Rotonda  for  Aimerico    . 
;^;}.  Poplar  Forest,  Bedford  County,  Virginia 

34.  Octagonal  design  ascribed  to  Inigo  Jones 

35.  Sketches  for  a  house  for  Robert  Liston    . 

36.  Pavilion  VII,  University  of  Virginia 

37.  Pavilion  TT,  "Ionic  of  Fortuna  Virilis,"  University  of  Virginia 

38.  .Arlington,  .Alexandria  County,  Virginia  . 

39.  Andalusia,  Bucks  County,  Pennsylvania 

40.  Berry  Hill,  Halifax  County,  Virginia 

41.  Wilson  house,  -■Ann  Arbor,  Michigan 

42.  Dexter  house.  Dexter,  Michigan     .... 

43.  Hill  house,  Athens,  Georgia   ..... 

44.  Anderson  house,  Throgg's  Neck,  New  York 
44.A.  Bremo,  Fluvanna  County,  Virginia 

45.  Barrell  house,  Charlestown    ..... 

46.  Swan  house,  Dorchester  .  .  .  .  . 

47.  Monticello,  as  remodelled       ..... 

48.  Dyckman  house.  New  York  City    .... 

49.  Diagram  ot  a  low  curb  roof    ..... 

50.  Franklin  Crescent,  Boston      ..... 

51.  Houses  nos.  1-4  Park  Street,  Boston 

52.  Plan  of  houses  nos.  1-4  Park  Street 

53.  "Plan  and  Elevation  of  the  South  Buildings  in  Sansom 

delphia"         ....... 

54.  Jerathmeel  Peirce  (Nichols)  house,  Salem 

55.  The  Woodlands,  Philadelphia.     Entrance  front  as  remodelled 

56.  Morton  house,  Roxbury         ...... 


Street  in  the  Ci 


tv  of 


XIV 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


164. 
165. 
166. 

\i67. 
168. 


177. 
178. 
179. 
180. 
181. 


190. 
191. 
192. 

193- 
194. 

195- 


Boston 


FIGURE 

157.  Crafts  house,  Roxbury  .... 

158.  President's  house,  Philadelphia 

159.  Accepted  elevation  tor  the  President's  house 

160.  Study  for  the  Elias  Hasket  Derby  house,  Salem 

161.  Harrison  Gray  Otis  house,  85  Mount  Vernon  Street 
W162.  Lyman  house,  Waltham,  Massachusetts  . 

163.     Design  for  a  city  house  by  John  McComb 
Design  for  a  city  house  by  Charles  Bulfinch 
Thomas  Amory  (Ticknor)  house,  Park  Street 
Parkman  houses,  Bowdoin  Square,  Boston 
Burd  house,  Philadelphia 
.168.     Larkin  house,  Portsmouth 

169.  John  Gardner  (Pingree)  house,  Salem 

170.  Bingham  house,  Philadelphia 

171.  Manchester  House,  London   . 

172.  Design  for  a  city  house  by  Charles  Bulfinch 

173.  Nathaniel  Silsbee  house,  Salem 

174.  Window  at  the  Woodlands 

175.  Window  of  the  house  at  1109  Walnut  Street,  Philad 

176.  Pickering  Dodge  (Shreve)  house,  Salem  . 
Hunnewell  (Shepley)  house,  Portland.     Detail 
Gore  house,  Waltham.     Entrance  front  . 
Doorway  of  the  Gore  house   . 
Doorway  of  the  Dexter  house.  Dexter,  Michig 
Commandant's  quarters,  Pittsburg  arsenal 

182.  Porch  of  the  Langdon  house,  Portsmouth 

183.  Portico  of  the  Bulloch  house,  Savannah  . 

184.  Barrell  house,  Charlestown.     Elevation  . 

185.  The  Woodlands,  Philadelphia.     River  front 

186.  Montpellier,  Orange  County,  Virginia 

187.  Design  for  a  country  villa 

188.  Smith  house.  Grass  Lake,  Michigan 

189.  Cornice  details      ..... 
Cornice  from  the  William  Gray  house,  Salem 
Porch  of  the  Joseph  Peabody  house,  Salem 
Oval  saloon  of  the  Barrell  house,  Charlestown 
Vestibule  of  the  Octagon,  Washington     . 
Stairs  of  the  Barrell  house,  Charlestown  . 
Stairs  of  the  Gore  house,  Waltham 

196.  Vestibule  of  the  Woodlands,  Philadelphia 

197.  Crafts  house,  Roxbury.     Plan 

XV 


Boston 


Iphia 


PACE 

198 
199 

200 
201 
202 
203 
204 
204 
205 
206 
207 
208 
209 
210 
21 1 
212 
213 
214 
215 
216 
217 
218 
219 
220 
221 
222 
223 
224 
22c 
226 
227 
228 
229 
230 

111 

234 

235 
236 

^37 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FIGURE 

198.  Interior  of  the  John  C.  Stevens  house,  New  York 

199.  East  parlor  ot  the  Jerathmeel  Peirce  (Nichols)  house,  Salem 

200.  Ballroom,  Lyman  house,  Waltham  ..... 

201.  Interior  from  the  Barrell  house,  Charlestown   .... 

202.  The  saloon,  Monticello  ........ 

203.  Cornice  in  the  North  Bow,  Monticello     ..... 

204.  Ceiling  at  Solitude         ........ 

205.  Ceiling  of  the  stair  hall  in  the  Nathaniel  Russell  house,  Charleston 

206.  John  Andrew  (Safford)  house,  Salem        ..... 

207.  Mantel  and  cornice  in  the  drawing-room  at  the  Octagon   . 

208.  Mantel  in  the  dining-room  at  the  Octagon        .... 

209.  Mantel  from  the  Nathan  Read  house,  Salem,  now  in  the  Hooper  house,  Danvers 

210.  Mantel  in  the  Harrison  Gray  Otis  house,  Cambridge  Street,  Boston 

211.  Mantels  in  the  Gore  house,  Waltham       .... 

212.  Mantel  in  the  Haven  house,  Portsmouth 

213.  Mantel  from  the  Eagle  house,  Haverhill  .... 

214.  Interior  door  at  the  Woodlands       ..... 

215.  Wedgwood  plaque  from  the  dining-room  mantel  at  Monticello 

216.  Mantel  from  the  Registr\'  of  Deeds,  Salem 

217.  Mantel  with  ornament  by  Robert  Welltord 

218.  Interlace  from  Pain's  Prrtf/Zfrt/ fi«/7(/('r    .... 

219.  Cornice  with  interlace,  from  the  Eagle  house,  Haverhill     . 


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247 
249 
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251 

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254 
^55 
256 

257 
259 

260 
261 


XVI 


INTRODUCTION 

For  fifty  years  and  more  admiration  and  study  of  Colonial  architecture  have 
grown,  stimulating  each  other,  until  to-day  a  vast  literature  and  a  wide-spread  re- 
vival testify  to  the  high  appreciation  of  this  phase  of  American  art. 

It  is  hard  for  us  to  realize  that  this  must  not  always  have  been  the  case,  and 
that,  like  other  styles,  the  Colonial  had  to  pass  through  its  day  of  contumely  and 
neglect  at  the  hands  of  the  generations  immediately  following  its  creators.  To 
them,  eager  to  substitute  something  more  monumental  or  romantic,  it  was  merely 
crude  and  old-fashioneci.  Jefferson  was  the  first  to  voice  this  judgment  of  pre- 
Revolutionary  structures,  when,  in  1784,  he  characterized  the  college  buildings  at 
William  and  Mary  as  "rude  misshapen  piles,  which,  but  that  they  have  roofs, 
would  be  taken  for  brick  kilns,"  and  when,  writing  from  abroad  in  1786,  he  says, 
a  propos  of  English  buildings,  "Their  architecture  is  in  the  most  wretched  style  I 
ever  saw,  not  meaning  to  except  America,  where  it  is  baci,  or  even  Virginia,  where 
it  is  worse  than  in  any  other  part  of  America,  that  I  have  seen."  In  an  interesting 
sketch  of  the  art  in  this  country  published  by  the  North  American  Review  in  1836, 
H.  W.  S.  Cleveland  speaks  with  great  condescension  of  any  work  previous  to  the 
Greek  and  Gothic  revivals.  The  first  historical  account  of  American  buildings,  in- 
cluded by  Mrs.  Tuthill  of  Philadelphia  in  her  now  almost  forgotten  "History  of 
Architecture"(i848),  speaks  of  the  old  New  England  meeting-houses  as  "outrage- 
ous deformities  to  the  eye  of  taste,"  and  of  the  houses  as  "wooden  enormities"  ! 

By  the  middle  of  the  century,  however,  Colonial  buildings  began  to  attract  af- 
fection and  respect,  though  more  for  their  halo  of  age  and  Revolutionary  associa- 
tion than  for  intrinsic  artistic  reasons.  Hawthorne's  "House  of  the  Seven  Gables" 
of  1851  and  Longfellow's  "Wayside  Inn"  of  1863  at  once  marked  and  strengthened 
popular  appreciation.  The  effort  to  preserve  Mount  Vernon,  culminating  in  its 
purchase  in  1859,  was  a  significant  episode.  The  attempt  to  save  the  Hancock 
house  the  same  year,  although  unsuccessful,  occasioned  the  making  by  John 
Sturgis  of  a  set  of  measured  drawings  of  it,  one  of  the  earliest  instances  of  such 
record  of  our  old  buildings.     By  1869  professional  interest  had  risen  sufficiently  to 

xvii 


INTRODUCTION 

call  forth  a  paper  by  Richard  Upjohn  at  the  third  annual  meeting  ot  the  American 
Institute  of  Architects,  on  "The  Colonial  Architecture  of  New  York  and  the  New 
England  States."  At  the  Centennial  Exposition  the  State  buildings  ot  Massa- 
chusetts and  Connecticut  were  reproductions  of  local  Colonial  houses,  and  the 
Queen  Anne  movement,  stimulated  by  the  Centennial,  had  tor  its  avowed  object 
the  reintroduction  ot  the  vernacular  style  ot  the  time  ot  Anne  and  the  Georges. 
Such  a  revival,  after  constant  gains  in  knowledge  and  strength,  constitutes  to-day 
perhaps  the  most  powertul  force  in  American  domestic  architecture. 

Like  every  modern  artistic  revival  it  has  demanded  and  has  produced  a  great 
body  of  publications,  supplying  the  needful  material  for  imitation  in  the  form  ot 
sketches,  photographs,  and  measured  drawings.  For  the  requirements  of  the  art- 
ist the  exactness,  or  even  the  presence,  of  an  accompanying  text  has  been  a  sec- 
ondary matter,  and  it  is  but  natural  that  in  most  of  the  publications  intended  for 
professional  use  the  standard  of  historical  accuracy  has  been  extremely  low.  For 
instance,  photographs  of  the  Bergen  house  on  Long  Island,  which  owes  its  exterior 
form  chiefly  to  1819,  with  additions  as  late  as  1824,1  have  been  several  times  pub- 
lished to  illustrate  the  early  Dutch  type,  and  dated  1655.  Attempts,  with  such  as- 
sumptions, to  fix  the  date  of  other  buildings  by  analogy  ot  style  have  inevitably  re- 
sulted in  still  worse  confusion.  Even  where  the  main  course  ot  development  has 
been  too  obvious  to  be  mistaken,  the  causes  and  the  instruments  ot  change  in  many 
cases  have  not  been  understood.  None  the  less,  works  ot  the  character  described — 
most  notable  of  them  "The  Georgian  Period,"  published  in  three  volumes  trom 
1899  to  1902 — have  done  great  historical  service  in  making  accessible  tor  study  and 
comparison  graphic  reproductions  of  a  very  considerable  part  ot  our  wealth  of 
early  buildings. 

Simultaneously,  but  in  most  cases  wholly  apart  from  this  activity  in  drawing 
and  photographing,  the  documents  relative  to  buildings  of  historic  interest  have 
been  sought  out  by  local  antiquaries.  Papers  on  a  great  number  ot  these  have 
gradually  been  published  in  local  historical  "Collections,"  providing  the  material 
for  an  exact  knowledge  of  the  dates  and  circumstances  ot  their  erection.  It  is  but 
rarely  that  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  employ  both  instruments  ot  study,  so 
that  internal  and  documentary  evidences  might  supplement  and  confirm  each 
other.  Such  thorough  studies  of  individual  buildings  are  even  now  few  enough, 
and  works  on  a  larger  scale  in  which  several  are  combined  as  the  material  for  a 
discussion  of  relationships  and  development  are  fewer  still.  To  the  pioneer  ex- 
amples, the  "Early  Rhode  Island  Houses"  and  the  "Early  Connecticut  Houses," 

'  C.  A.  Ditnias,  "Homesteads  of  Kings  County"  (1909),  pp.  31-34- 

xviii 


INTRODUCTION 

by  Norman  M.  Isham  and  Albert  F.  Brown,  has  recently  been  added  the  "Dwell- 
ing Houses  ot  Charleston,"  by  Miss  Alice  Huger  Smith  and  her  collaborators.  In 
the  volume  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect"  (1916),  we  have  ourselves  attempted 
to  cover  the  chief  houses  ot  the  Piedmont  region  of  Virginia,  anci  in  a  forthcoming 
work  tor  the  Essex  Institute  have  undertaken  a  similar  task  for  the  later  build- 
ings of  Salem. 

Efforts  have  not  been  wanting,  also,  to  write  a  comprehensive  account  of  our 
early  domestic  architecture,  and  to  outline  its  development.  Tn  no  case,  however, 
have  these  involved  adequate  study  of  the  docvimentary  evidence,  nor  of  the 
special  literature  of  individual  buildings  and  localities.  What  is  needed  is  a  syn- 
thesis ot  the  individual  results  so  far  won — a  synthesis  every  hour  of  which,  as 
Fustel  de  Coulanges  has  said,  presupposes  a  year  of  analysis. 

For  such  an  account  ot  development  the  necessary  basis  is  a  series  of  examples 
authentically  dated  by  documents.  In  domestic  architecture  this  requirement  is 
hard  to  supply.  Documentary  evidence  is  relatively  scarce  in  comparison  with 
that  bearing  on  public  buildings  and  churches.  Will  and  deed  records,  the  largest 
group,  often  leave  much  latitude  owing  to  long  lives  and  long  tenures.  Several 
different  houses,  even,  may  succeed  one  another  on  the  same  site  without  any  sug- 
gestion ot  a  change  appearing  in  such  records.  The  constant  remodelling  of  oc- 
cupied dwellings  makes  it  sometimes  uncertain  what  material  belongs  to  the  period 
of  building  or  to  any  given  period  ot  rebuilding.  In  spite  ot  this,  it  has  been  possi- 
ble by  the  aid  of  building  contracts  and  accounts,  inscriptions,  and  original  designs, 
as  well  as  inventories,  wills,  deeds,  and  other  documents  in  tavorable  cases,  to  de- 
termine with  sufficient  and  in  most  cases  with  absolute  exactness  the  dates  and 
original  form  of  nearly  two  hundred  houses  between  the  time  ot  settlement  and 
1835.  These  houses,  listed  in  order  in  the  Chronological  Chart,  are  discussed  in- 
dividually in  notes  at  the  end  of  the  book.  It  is  on  these  houses  exclusively  that 
the  conclusions  of  the  present  study  are  based,  although  others  are  cited  as  illus- 
trating specitic  points  or  indicating  the  diffusion  ot  types. 

The  work  covered — limited  to  the  colonies  under  English  rule — extends  in  time 
from  the  coming  of  the  European  colonists  to  the  triumph  ot  romanticism  in  the 
second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century.  The  terminus  is  selected  not  as  marking 
any  supposed  death  of  traditional  art,  but  merely  as  being  the  end  ot  one  chapter 
in  the  evolution  of  style.  All  told,  we  have  to  cover  three  such  chapters,  two  fall- 
ing before  the  Revolution,  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  respec- 
tively, the  third  after  the  Revolution  in  the  days  of  the  early  Republic.  To  guard 
against  misunderstanding  we  will  use  the  term  "Colonial  architecture"  neither  in 

xix 


INTRODUCTION 

the  sense  in  which  it  has  been  stretched  to  apply  to  the  whole  period  from  1620  to 
1820,  nor  in  the  one  in  which  it  has  been  restricted  to  the  time  before  the  advent 
of  the  so-called  "Georgian,"  about  1700,  but  only  in  its  original  and  natural  sense 
of  architecture  before  the  Revolution.'  The  Revolution,  as  we  shall  see,  brought  a 
far  more  fundamental  change  in  American  domestic  architecture  than  is  generally 
appreciated.  A  change  within  the  Colonial  period,  equally  significant  as  regards 
style,  took  place  at  the  close  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

'  For  the  evolution  of  the  nomenclature  and  of  the  division  into  periods  see  "The  Study  of  Colonial  Archi- 
tecture" in  the  Architectural  Review,  n.  s.,  vol.  6  (1918),  pp.  29  and  37. 


XX 


AMERICAN 
DOMESTIC  ARCHITECTURE 


THE   SEVENTEENTH   CENTURY 

PRIMITIVE  SHELTERS 

IN  all  the  European  settlements  in  North  America,  more  primitive  shelters — 
the  very  types  of  which  have  long  since  been  swept  away — preceded  dwell- 
ings of  frame  or  of  masonry,  and  continued  for  a  greater  or  less  time  to 
subsist  beside  them.  It  is  currently  supposed  that  this  was  uniquely  the 
result  of  pioneer  conditions  in  a  new  world,  forcing  the  adoption  of  existing 
native  types  or  the  spontaneous  creation  of  others  adapted  to  the  environment. 
It  has  also  been  generally  assumed,  even  by  careful  students,  that  the  first 
houses  of  the  colonists  were  log  houses  of  the  general  scheme  of  the  "log  cabins" 
of  later  frontier  settlements,  built  of  logs  laid  horizontally  and  chinked  with 
clay. 

An  attentive  study  of  the  documents  regarding  the  earliest  dwellings  in  the 
colonies  and  of  the  ordinary  houses  of  England  at  the  same  period  leads  us,  how- 
ever, to  very  different  conclusions.  The  earliest  records  of  the  English  colonies 
nowhere  indicate  the  use  of  the  construction  just  described,  although  they  reveal 
the  employment  of  many  other  primitive  modes  of  building.  These,  it  appears,  i 
represent  neither  invention  of  necessity  nor  borrowing  from  the  Indians,  but  If/ 
transplantation  and  perpetuation  of  types  current  in  England,  still  characteristic 
then  of  the  great  body  of  minor  dwellings  in  the  country  districts. 

It  is  little  realized  that  few  of  the  old  cottages  now  standing  in  England  ante- 
date the  seventeenth  century,  and  that  they  represent  a  general  rise  in  the  "cul- 
ture stage"  of  the  English  yeomanry  which  took  place  at  that  time,  bringing  to 
them,  as  of  right,  things  which  had  before  appertained  only  to  the  gentry,  and 
involving  the  destruction  and  replacement  of  the  cruder  dwellings  which  had  been 
usual  hitherto.'  In  his  recent  and  fundamental  study.  Innocent  has  shown  that 
the  usual  dwellings  of  agricultural  laborers  in  England  down  to  this  period,  and 
in   remote  districts  long  afterward,  sometimes  nearly  to  the  present  ilay,  were 

'  C.  F.  Innocent,  "The  Development  of  English  Building  Construction"  (1916),  esp.  pp.  4,  150. 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


not  of  stone  or  brick,  or  even  ot  frame,  but  of  much  more  rudimentary  construc- 
tion— of  branches,  rushes,  and  turf,  of  paHngs  and  hurdles,  of  wattle,  clay,  and  mud. 
All  these  modes  of  building  were  practised  by  the  American  colonists — at  first 
often  in  cases  which  involved  a  great  retrogression  from  English  standards  of  the 
time,  as  well  as  in  the  many  which  did  not.  Thus,  although  to  the  gentlemen 
who  were  the  leaders  and  chroniclers,  their  first  abodes  in  the  new  world  were 
mean  enough  compared  with  those  to  which  they  were  accustomed,  to  many  farm 
servants  and  poor  people  the  rude  shelters  meant  no  more  than  a  perpetuation  of 

conditions  at  home. 

The  simplest  of  the  primitive  dwell- 
ings of  the  colonists  were  conical  huts  of 
branches,  rushes,  and  turf;  Lieutenant- 
Governor  Dudley,  of  Massachusetts  Bay, 
speaks  in  1631  of  "some  English  wigwams 
which  have  taken  fire  in  the  roofs  cov- 
ered with  thatch  or  boughs."'  Such  con- 
ical huts  were  employed  in  England  as  late 
as  fifty  years  ago  by  goatherds  and  shep- 
herds, as  well  as  by  agricultural  laborers 
during  harvest,  and  are  still  in  wide-spread 
use  there  by  charcoal  burners^  (figure  i). 
A  step  in  advance  was  the  elongation 
of  such  a  hut  by  the  adoption  of  a  ridge- 
piece  supported  on  forked  poles.  This 
was  the  case  in  the  earliest  church  in 
Jamestown,  the  account  of  which  by  Smith 
is  our  most  specific  description  of  the  first 
shelters  in  Virginia:  "In  foule  weather  we  shifted  into  an  old  rotten  tent;  for  we 
had  few  better.  .  .  .  This  was  our  Church,  till  we  built  a  homely  thing,  like  a 
barne,  set  upon  Cratchets,  covered  with  rafts,  sedge,  and  earth,  so  was  also  the 
walls:  the  best  part  of  our  houses  (were)  of  the  like  curiosity;  but  the  most  part 
farre  much  worse  workmanship,  that  could  neither  well  defend  wind  nor  raine."^ 
This  corresponds  almost  precisely  with  more  developed  English  huts,  having  low 

'  Letter  to  the  Countess  of  Lincoln,  reprinted  in  P.  Force's  Tracts,  vol.  2  (1838),  IV,  p.  19.  For  other 
allusions  to  early  English  huts  as  "wigwams"  see  "Memoirs  of  Captain  Roger  Clap"  in  A.  Young's  "Chron- 
icles ...  of  Massachusetts"  (1846),  p.  351;  J.  Winthrop's  "History  of  New  England"  (1825  ed.),  p.  36; 
and  two  quotations  from  Edward  Johnson,  below,  one,  to  be  sure,  in  a  different  sense. 

^  Innocent,  "English  Building  Construction,"  pp.  8-1 1,  figs.  I  and  2. 

2  "Works,"  ed.  by  E.  Arber  (1886),  p.  957. 


Figure  I.     Charcoal  burners'  hut 

South  Yorkshire 

Courtesy  of  C.  F.  Innocent 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

walls  of  branches  and  earth,  and  the  ridge-pole  lashed  to  vertical,  forked  poles, 
with  intermediate  poles  covered  with  sods^  (figure  2).  The  "Cratchets"  which 
Smith  alludes  to,  otherwise  "crotchets,"  were  the  posts  with  a  forked  top — char- 
acteristic elements  of  primitive  house  construction  in  England.- 

Another  very  rudimentary  type  is  mentioned  by  Edward  Johnson,  himself  one 
of  the  first  comers  to  Massachusetts  Bay,  who  says  of  the  New  England  settlers, 
"They  burrow  themselves  in  the  Earth  for  their  first  shelter  under  some  Hill  side. 


Figure  2.     Bark-pecler"s  hut,  High  Furness 

From  Transactions  of  the  Cumberland  and  Westmoreland  Antiquarian  Society,  vol.  l6  (1901) 

Courtesy  of  W.  G.  Collingwood  and  H.  S.  Cowper 


casting  the  Earth  aloft  upon  Timber;  they  make  a  smoaky  fire  against  the  Earth 
at  its  highest  side  .  .  .  yet  in  these  poor  JVigwames  (they  sing  Psalms  pray,  and 
praise  their  God)  till  they  can  provide  them  houses."^  At  the  founding  ol  Phila- 
delphia in  1682  similar  shelters  "were  formed  by  digging  into  the  ground,  near  the 
verge  of  the  river-front  bank,  about  three  feet  in  depth;  thus  making  halt  their 
chamber  underground,  and  the  remaining  half  above  ground  was  tormed  ot  sods 

^  H.  S.  Cowper,  in  Transactions  of  the  Cumberland  and  JFestmoreland  Antiquarian  Society,  vol.  16  (1901). 
^"English  Building  Construction,"  esp.  pp.  14-16,  and  supplementary  letter  from  the  author. 
'"Wonder  Working  Providence,"  1654  (reprint  of  1867),  p.  83. 


A  M  ERIC  AN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

of  earth,  or  earth  and  brush  combined.  The  roots  were  formed  of  layers  of  Hmbs, 
or  split  pieces  of  trees  overlaid  with  sod  or  bark,  river  rushes,  etc."^  Although 
efforts  to  put  an  end  to  these  "caves"  were  made  in  1685,  some  persisted,  and 
one  was  still  in  existence  as  late  as  1760. 

Many  of  the  early  cottages  were  ot  wattle,  with  or  without  a  ciaubing  of  clay. 
In  Plymouth  Colony,  Bradford  and  Winslow  report  that  in  1621  a  storm  "caused 
much  daubing  of  our  houses  to  tall  downe,""  and  Bradford,  speaking  of  the  burn- 
ing of  the  houses  of  Robert  Gorges's  colonists  in  1623,  says:  "This  fire  .  .  .  broke 
out  of  y"  chimney  into  y""  thatch  .  .  .  And  shortly  after,  when  y"  vehemence  of 
y  fire  was  over,  smoke  was  seen  to  arise  within  a  shed  y'  was  joined  to  y"  end  of 
y"  storehouse,  which  was  wattled  up  with  bowes,  in  y''  withered  leaves  whereof 
y"  fire  was  kindled."'  Since,  as  we  shall  see,  framed  houses  were  not  in  use  at 
Plymouth  even  several  years  later,  we  must  conclude  that  this  wattle  did  not 
form  the  filling  of  a  frame,  but  was  on  stakes  or  posts  driven  into  the  ground,  as 
in  the  ordinary  houses  of  the  mediaeval  period  in  England,  which  lingered  in  re- 
mote districts.' 

The  first  buildings  of  timber  in  the  colonies  seem  to  have  been  of  trunks  or 
planks  stood  vertically,  like  palisades,  as  in  the  earliest  timber  construction  in 
England.'  In  1629,  when  Ralph  Sprague  and  his  companions  came  to  Charles- 
town,  "they  found  there  but  one  English  palisadoed  and  thatched  house."''  Of 
similar  type  would  seem  to  have  been  the  houses  at  Plymouth,  seven  years  after 
its  settlement,  described  by  Isaack  de  Rasieres  as  "constructed  of  hewn  planks, 
with  gardens  also  enclosed  behind  and  at  the  sides  with  hewn  planks."^  The 
phrase  ''hewn  planks"  excludes  the  possibility  that  the  planks  formed  the  cover- 
ing of  a  frame,  for  in  that  case  they  would  certainly  have  been  sawn,  like  the 
"thick  sawn  plank"  which  formed  the  roof  of  the  meeting-house.  The  use  of  an 
identical  phrase  in  referring  to  the  garden  enclosures  suggests  that  the  planks 
were  set  vertically,  and  indeed  Bradford  and  Winslow  speak  of  the  allotments  in 
December,  1620,  "for  houses  and  gardens  to  impale  them  round. "^  At  a  later 
day  the  same  methods  were  employed  by  the  first  British  settlers  in  East  Jersey. 
Gawen  Lawrie  writes  in   1684:  "The  poor  sort  set  up  a  house  of  two  or   three 

'  J.  F.  Watson,  "Annals  of  Philadelphia"  (1830),  pp.  65,  159-160. 
'  "Relation  or  lournall"  (1622),  reprinted  bv  H.  M.  Dexter  (1865),  p.  79. 
3  "Of  Plimoth  Plantation"  (1898  ed.),  pp.  182-183. 
"Innocent,  "English  Building  Construction,"  pp.  126-129. 
"Innocent,  "English   Building  Construction,"  pp.   109-111,   128-129. 
^  "Early  Records  of  Charlestown,"  in  Young,  "Chronicles  of  Massachusetts,"  p.  374. 
'Translation  in  Collections  of  the  New  York  Historical  Society,  2d  ser.,  vol.  2  (1849),  pp.  351-352.      Dutch 
text  in  Nederlandsch  Archief  voor  Kerkgeschiedenis,  n.  s.,  vol.  15  (1919),  p.  274. 
'' ^  oung,  "Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers"  (1841),  p.  170. 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

rooms  themselves,  after  this  manner;  the  walls  are  of  cloven  timber  about  eight 
or  ten  inches  broad,  like  planks  set  one  end  to  the  ground,  and  the  other  nailed 
to  the  raising,  which  they  plaster  within."^ 

The  suggestion  that  the  earliest  English  settlers  probably  lived  in  log  houses 
of  the  familiar  type  was  first  made  by  Alexander  Young  in  1841,  as  an  inference 
from  the  mention  ot  daubing  in  Plymouth.-  John  Gorham  Palfrey  in  i860  drew 
a  similar  inference  from  the  same  passage,^  although  he  continued  in  later  writings 
to  qualify  the  belief  as  probable  but  not  certain.*  Subsequent  writers,  even  the 
very  best,  have  been  less  cautious  and  have  generally  accepted  the  view  without 
qualification.^  So  far  as  the  argument  from  "daubing"  is  concerned,  the  word 
nowhere  appears  in  connection  with  log  houses  until  the  nineteenth  century;  its 
true  bearing  in  the  colonies  has  already  been  discussed.  None  of  the  earliest 
records  of  the  English  colonies  suggests  a  structure  of  horizontal  logs.  This  is  the 
more  significant  since  it  seems  that  this  form  of  construction  was  totally  unknown 
in  England,  and  thus  would  certainly  have  called  forth  a  word  of  description. 
Innocent  states:  "There  is  no  satisfactory  evidence  that  this  form  of  building  was 
ever  in  use  in  England  in  any  of  its  forms";*'  and  the  "New  English  Dictionary" 
reveals  no  reference  to  it  there.  It  is  not  until  1669  and  1680  that  allusions  to 
log  houses  in  the  colonies  appear.^  Only  in  Georgia,  founded  1733,  were  log 
houses  occasionally  used  from  the  start  as  a  superior  form  of  construction,**  and 
even  here  the  first  dwellings  were  "Clap-board  Huts,"  not  framed.^ 

A  derivation  of  the  log  house  from  the  Indians  has  been  tempting  to  those 
who  have  wished  to  emphasize  the  mastering  of  the  colonist's  inherited  traditions 
by  the  wilderness:  "It  puts  him  in  the  log  cabin  of  the  Cherokee  and  Iroquois 
and  runs  an  Indian  palisade  around  him."^"  Unfortunately  for  this  belief,  none 
of  the   tribes  with  whom  the  early  settlers  came  in  contact  lived  in  log  houses. 

'  S.  Smitli,  "History  of  New-Jersey"  (1765),  p.  180. 

-  Young,  "Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,"  p.  179,  note. 

'  "History  of  New  England,"  vol.  2,  p.  62. 

■*  "Compendious  History  of  New  England,"  2d  ed.  (1872),  vol.  I,  p.  296. 

^  W.  B.  Weeden,  "Economic  and  Social  History  of  New  England"  (1890),  vol.  i,  pp.  213-214;  Isham  and 
Brown,  "Early  Rhode  Island  Houses"  (1895),  p.  16;  P.  A.  Bruce,  "Economic  History  of  Virginia"  (1896), 
vol.  2,  p.  147;  T.  F.  Waters,  "The  Early  Homes  of  the  Puritans,"  Essex  Institute  Historical  Collections,  vol.  32 
(1897),  p.  49;  S.  H.  Yonge,  "James  Towne"  (1907),  pp.  36  ff. 

*"  English  Building  Construction,"  pp.  109-III. 

'Archives  of  Maryland,  vol.  2  (1884),  p.  224;  Colonial  Records  of  North  Carolina,  vol.  I  (1886),  p.  300. 

*  "True  and  Historical  Narrative  of  Georgia"  (1741),  in  Force,  Tracts,  vol.  i  (1836),  IV,  p.  70;  "Account 
Shewing  the  Progress  .   .   .  of  Georgia"  (1741),  ib.,  V,  p.  20. 

'"Brief  Account  of  .  .  .  Georgia"  (1733),  //'■,  II,  p.  10;  "State  of  the  Province  of  Georgia"  (1740), 
ib..  Ill,  pp.  5,  8,  17. 

'"  F.  J.  Turner,  "The  Significance  of  the  Frontier  in  ."Xmerican  History,"  Annual  Report  of  the  Americati 
Historical  Association  (1893),  p.  201. 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

The  Indian  huts  described  in  contemporary  narratives,  including  the  long-house 
of  the  Iroquois,  are  all  of  radically  different  construction.  Even  in  the  case  of 
the  Creek,  who  sometimes  did  employ  the  log  house  in  the  later  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, all  evidence  agrees  that  it  was  unknown  to  them  until  after  the  founding  of 
Georgia.'  It  was  one  thing  among  many  others  adopted  by  this  exceptionally 
gifted  tribe  from  the  colonists. 

A  more  reasonable  supposition  is  that  the  log  house  was  brought  to  America 
by  the  people  in  whose  native  land  at  that  time  it  was  the  customary  form  of 
dwelling — the  Swedes  and  Finns  who  settled  on  the  Delaware  in  1638  and  the 
years  following.  Peter  Kalm,  writing  in  1749  and  quoting  a  settler  ninety-one 
years  old,  describes  the  first  houses  as  of  round  logs  chinked  with  clay,-  and  con- 
temporary accounts  describe  the  fort  built  at  New  Gothenburg  in  1643  as  "made 
of  hemlock  beams,  laid  one  upon  the  other."^  From  the  very  beginnings  of  New 
Sweden  there  was  trade  with  both  Virginia  and  New  England,  and  the  inter- 
change of  ideas  which  resulted,  with  time,  in  the  building  of  an  "English  house" 
at  Fort  Elfsborg,''  seems  ultimately  to  have  taught  the  English  colonists  a  method 
of  construction  so  obviously  suited  to  pioneer  conditions  in  the  new,  heavily 
forested  continent. 

How  late  the  primitive  types  of  English  origin  persisted  cannot  be  exactly 
determined,  but  even  in  the  regions  first  settled  it  was  much  later  than  is  gener- 
ally recognized.  In  Virginia  they  must  still  have  been  characteristic  of  the 
isolated  plantations  in  1623,  for  George  Sandys  wrote  of  possible  advantages  of 
the  massacre  in  the  previous  year,  "in  drawing  ourselves  into  a  narrower  circuite, 
whereby  the  people  might  have  been  better  governed  .  .  .  framed  houses 
erected,"  and  so  on.^  Sir  John  Harvey  speaks  as  if  they  were  still  not  uncommon 
even  in  1639.''  In  relation  to  the  remoter  agricultural  districts  of  the  British 
Isles,  as  we  have  seen,  however,  the  elimination  of  crude  shelters  was  rapid. 
Johnson  could  write  of  Massachusetts  Bay  by  1654:  "The  Lord  hath  been 
pleased  to  turn  all  the  wigwams,  huts,  and  hovels  the  English  dwelt  in  at  their 
first  coming  into  orderly,  fair  and  well  built  houses.""      It  must  not  be  forgotten 

'  Early  descriptions  quoted  in  C.  C.  Jones,  "History  of  Georgia,"  vol.  i  (1883),  pp.  7-8,  41.  Benjamin 
Hawkins's  detailed  "Sketch  of  the  Creek  Country  in  the  Years  1798  and  1799,"  Collections  of  the  Georgia 
Historical  Society,  vol.  3  (1848),  speaks  of  "a  dwelling  house  and  kitchen  built  of  logs"  as  exceptional  (p.  30), 
and  describes  the  typical  buildings  as  having  vertical  posts  covered  with  slabs  and  clayed  (p.  69). 

'■^  "Resa"  (1753),  vol.  3,  p.  70;  English  translation  (1771),  vol.  2,  p.  121. 

^  A.  Johnson,  "The  Swedish  Settlements  on  the  Delaware"  (1911),  vol.  i,  p.  306. 

'  lb.,  p.  347. 

^Quoted  in  Neill's  "Virginia  Vetusta"  (1885),  p.  124. 

^Letter  of  January  18,  1639,  British  State  Papers,  Colonial,  vol.  10,  no.  5. 

'"Wonder  Working  Providence"  (reprint  of  1867),  p.  174. 

8 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

that  economic  conditions  in  the  colonies,  with  their  free  grant  of  wooded  land, 
were  far  more  favorable  than  in  England  at  that  time  to  the  common  man,  and 
that  their  equalizing  tendency  levelled  up  as  well  as  down. 

FRAME  HOUSES 

Long  before  the  last  primitive  shelters  disappeared  in  the  colonies  many 
better  houses  had  been  built.  The  large  majority  of  them  were  framed  structures 
of  wood.  With  the  natural  focussing  of  attention  on  the  more  pretentious  build- 
ings abroad,  it  has  been  little  realized  that  this  was  but  in  accordance  with  the 
ordinary  character  of  the  more  prosperous  yeomen's  houses  in  England  up  to  this 
time.  S.  O.  Addy,  a  pioneer  student  of  humbler  English  dwellings,  writes:  "In 
historic  times  the  houses  of  the  English  peasantry  were  mostly  built  of  wood, 
stone  being  only  used  where  wood  could  not  be  obtained.  .  .  .  Houses  were 
built  ot  wood  even  in  places  where  stone  was  most  abundant,  and  this  kind  of 
building  continued  to  the  close  of  the  i6th  century."'  Innocent  fixes  the  seven-  "' 
teenth  century,  with  the  drain  on  the  oak  forests  made  by  the  creation  of  the  \ 
navy,  and  with  the  profound  impression  made  by  the  Great  Fire  in  1666,  as  the 
time  during  which  other  materials  tended  to  supplant  wood."  The  use  of  wood 
by  the  colonists  was  thus  not  the  adoption  of  an  inferior  material  due  to  local 
conditions,  but  the  perpetuation  ol  English  custom  where  the  need  for  abandon- 
ing it  was  lacking.     For  the  poorer  men,  indeed,  it  was  even  a  step  forward. 

The  first  framed  houses  in  the  English  colonies  were  erected  following  the 
arrival  in  Virginia  in  August,  161 1,  of  Sir  Thomas  Dale  and  his  company.  Ralph 
Hamor,  secretary  of  state  from  161 1  to  1614,  wrote  of  Jamestown  on  his  return 
to  England:  "The  Towne  itself  by  the  care  and  Providence  of  Sir  Thomas  Gates 
is  reduced  into  a  hansome  forme,  and  hath  in  it  two  fair  rowes  of  houses  all  of 
Framed  timber  (two  stories,  and  an  upper  garret,  or  corne  loft,  high),"  and  of  the 
newly  founded  town  of  Henrico:  "There  is  in  this  town  three  streets  of  well 
framed  houses"  near  which  "hath  Mr.  Whitacres  ...  a  fair  framed  parsonage 
house  .  .  .  called  Rock  Hall."^  None  the  less,  there  remained  but  five  or  six 
houses  at  Jamestown  in  1617,  on  the  arrival  of  Deputy-Governor  Argall,  who 
wrote:  "We  were  constrained  every  yeare  to  build  and  repaire  our  old  Cottages, 

'  "The  Evolution  of  the  English  House"  (1898),  pp.  107-108;  Innocent,  "English  Building  Construction," 
p.  119. 

- /i.,  pp.  76,  123,  150.  Cj.  also  J.  E.  Thorold  Rogers,  "Agriculture  and  Prices  in  England,"  vol.  5  (1887), 
P-  529- 

'"True  discourse  of  the  Present  Estate  of  Virginia"  (1615),  quoted  in  A.  Brown,  "First  Republic  in 
America"  (1897),  pp.  208-209,  210. 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

which  were  alwaies  decaying."^  Decay  in  the  damp  climate,  and  neglect  accom- 
panying the  abandonment  of  old  frame  cottages  to  use  as  negro  quarters,  have 
continued  to  work  a  havoc  unequalled  in  New  England,  for,  although  further 
special  study  may  bring  discoveries,  we  know  of  no  wooden  house  in  Mrginia  for 
which  a  date  within  the  seventeenth  century  is  established  or  even  claimed.  For 
those  mentioned  in  court  records  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  century,  the  dimen- 
sions range  from  twenty  to  forty  feet  in  length  by  fifteen  to  twenty  in  breadth, 
the  longer  houses  having  chimneys  at  either  end."  The  number  of  rooms  ranged 
from  two  or  three  to  as  many  as  twelve  or  thirteen.  Three  rooms  on  each  of 
two  floors  were  not  uncommon,  the  position  of  the  chimneys  making  possible  an 
"inner  room,"  a  "little  room  opposite  the  stairs,"  or  "porch  chamber."^ 

In  the  New  England  colonies  framed  houses  were  erected  very  much  sooner 
after  their  settlement  than  was  the  case  in  Virginia.  The  salt-maker  sent  to  the 
Plymouth  colonists  in  1624,  regarded  as  very  extravagant  in  his  projects,  "caused 
them  to  send  carpenters  to  rear  a  great  frame  for  a  large  house."  ^  Higginson 
speaks  of  finding  in  Salem  in  1629  "about  half  a  score  houses  and  a  fayre  house 
newly  built  for  the  Governor."^  In  Charlestown  Thomas  Graves,  the  engineer 
of  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Company,  "built  the  great  house  this  year  for  such  of 
the  company  as  are  shortly  to  come  over,  which  afterwards  became  the  meeting 
house."''  From  the  special  terms  by  which  they  are  distinguished  it  seems 
reasonable  to  suppose  that  the  "fayre  house"  and  the  "great  house"  were  framed 
buildings,  and  almost  equally  certain  that  they  were  uniqvie  in  this."  Winthrop 
almost  immediately  on  his  arrival  in  i6jo  "ordered  his  house  to  be  cut  and 
framed"  in  Charlestown,^  but  shortly  removed  to  Boston,  "whither  also  the 
frame  of  the  Governor's  house  .  .  .  was  also  carried."^  Another  house  begun  by 
Winthrop  at  Cambridge  was  of  similar  character,  for  Dudley  complained  in 
August,  1632,  "that  the  governour  had  removed  the  frame  of  his  house,  which  he 
had  set  up  at  Newtown."^"  The  house  built  for  Winthrop  in  1643,  which  he  de- 
scribed   as  "more  convenient,""  was,  according  to  his  inventory,  1649,  of   two 

'Quoted  by  John  Smith,  "Works,"  pp.  535^536. 

-  Bruce,  "Economic  History  of  Virginia,"  vol.  2,  pp.  151-153.  ^  lb.,  pp.  153-157. 

■•William  Bradford,  "Of  Plimoth  Plantation"  (1898),  p.  203. 

■'Francis  Higginson,  "New  England's  Plantation"  (1630),  reprinted  in  Young's  "Chronicles  of  Massa- 
chusetts," p.  258. 

^  Early  Records  of  Charlestown  in  Young's  "Chronicles  of  Massachusetts,"  pp.  375-376  and  note,  378. 

"  Roger  Clap  in  May,  1630,  found  in  Charlestown,  "Some  wigwams  and  one  house,"  ib.,  p.  349.  The 
"great  house"  is  believed  to  have  stood  until  1775.     Ib.,  p.  375,  note. 

*  Town  Records  quoted  from  Young's  "Chronicles  of  Massachusetts,"  p.  379. 

^  lb.,  p.  381.  '"Winthrop,  "History  of  New  England"  (1825  ed.),  vol.  i,  p.  32. 

^^Proceedings  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  2d  ser.,  vol.  II  (1897),  p.  186. 

10 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

stories  and  a  half,  two  rooms  on  a  floor  besides  the  kitchen,  entry,  and    porch 
chamber  over  it.^ 

Although  we  are  ignorant  ot  the  precise  form  of  these  hrst  governors'  houses, 
we  are  so  fortunate  as  to  have  in  1638  most  detailed  prescriptions  tor  the  house  of 
another  ofScial,  Deputy-Governor  Samuel  Symonds,  at  Ipswich,  in  a  letter  to  John 
Winthrop  the  younger.  If  we  read  this  without  merely  fitting  it  to  our  precon- 
ceptions, we  will  find  every  sentence  full  of  illumination  on  unfamiliar  points: 


Fro7)i  a  p/toto^j-afih  hy  The  H>illid<ty  Historic  PhotOiTraph  Co. 

Figure  3.     "Scotch  House"  (Boardman  house),  Saugus,  Massachusetts.      1651 

"Concerning  the  frame  of  the  house  ...  I  am  indiferent  whether  it  be  30  foote  or 
2S  foote  longe;  16  or  18  foote  broade.  I  would  have  wood  chimnyes  at  each  end,  the 
frames  of  the  chimnyes  to  be  stronger  than  ordinary,  to  beare  good  heavy  load  ot  clay 
for  security  against  tire.  You  may  let  the  chimnyes  by  all  the  breadth  of  the  howse  if 
you  thinke  good;  the  2  lower  dores  to  be  in  the  middle  of  the  howse,  one  opposite  the 
other.  Be  sure  that  all  the  dorewaies  in  every  place  be  soe  high  that  any  man  may  goe 
vpright  vnder.  The  staiers  I  think  had  best  be  placed  close  by  the  dore.  It  makes  noe 
great  matter  though  there  be  noe  particion  vpon  the  first  flore;  if  there  be,  make  one  biger 
then  the  other.  For  windowes  let  them  not  be  over  large  in  any  roome,  &  as  tew  as  con- 
veniently may  be;  let  all  have  current  shutting  draw-windowes,  haveing  respect  both  to 
'  A.  M.  Earle,  "Margaret  Winthrop"  (1903),  pp.  174-180. 

II 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

present  &  future  vse.  I  thinke  to  make  it  a  girt  howse  will  make  it  more  chargeable  than 
neede;  however  the  side  bearers  for  the  second  story,  being  to  be  loaden  with  corne  &c. 
must  not  be  pinned  on,  but  rather  eyther  lett  in  to  the  studds  or  borne  vp  with  false  studds, 
&  see  tenented  in  at  the  ends.  I  leave  it  to  you  &  the  carpenters.  In  this  story  over  the 
first,  I  would  have  a  particion,  whether  in  the  middest  or  over  the  particion  vnder,  I  leave 
it.  In  the  garrett  noe  particion,  but  let  there  be  one  or  two  lucome  windowes,  if  two, 
both  on  one  side.  I  desire  to  have  the  sparrs  reach  downe  pretty  deep  at  the  eves  to  pre- 
serve the  walls  the  better  from  the  wether,  I  would  have  it  sellered  all  over  and  soe  the 
frame  of  the  howse  accordengly  from  the  bottom.  I  would  have  the  howse  stronge  in 
timber,  though  plaine  &  well  brased.  I  would  have  it  covered  with  very  good  oake-hart 
inch  hoard,  for  the  present,  to  be  tacked  on  onely  for  the  present,  as  you  tould  me.  Let 
the  frame  begin  from  the  bottom  of  the  cellar  &  soe  in  the  ordinary  way  vpright,  for  I  can 
hereafter  (to  save  the  timber  within  grounde)  run  vp  a  thin  brick  worke  without.  I  think 
it  best  to  have  the  walls  without  to  be  all  clapboarded  besides  the  clay  walls.  .  ."^ 

The  house,  it  will  be  observed,  was  one  room  deep  but  was  two  stories  and 
a  half  in  height  besides  a  ceirar7wJri'ch  was  framed  like  the  rest  instead  of  having 
masonry  wails.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  it  had  chimneys  at  both  ends,  and 
thus  furnishes  an  early  example  of  a  type  usual  in  Virginia,  but  not  reputed  to 
have  been  common  in  New  England  until  a  later  time.  We  may  surmise  that  the 
reason  lay  in  the  use  of  the  wooden  chimneys,  anci  that  the  practice  continued 
in  New  England  during  their  persistence. 

The  New  Haven  Colony  was  noted  for  the  mansions  erected  by  wealthy  men 
among  the  first  settlers.'-  William  Hubbard  wrote  before  1682:  "They  laid  out 
too  much  of  their  stocks  and  estates  in  building  of  fine  and  stately  houses,  wherein 
they  at  first  outdid  the  rest  of  the  country."'  The  fragmentary  and  sometimes 
inconsistent  data  concerning  these  houses,  however,  do  not  permit  reliable  con- 
clusions regarding  their  form.^  Nothing  in  the  inventories  requires  more  than 
lower  additions  at  the  ends  and  rear  of  the  simple  two-story  type. 

All  these,  of  course,  were  the  houses  of  people  of  quality.  Before  1640,  how- 
ever, framed  houses  began  to  be  built  in  Massachusetts  more  generally.  Brad- 
ford records  that  in  1639  "Thomas  Starr  .  .  .  hath  sould  unto  Andrew  Hellot 
one  frame  of  a  house,  with  a  chimney,  to  be  set  up  and  thacked  in  Yarmouth." 
The  first  description  we  have  of  a  framed  house  for  an  artisan  is  that  of  one  to  be 

'  Collections  of  the  Alassachusetts  Historical  Society,  4th  ser.,  vol.  7  (1865),  pp.  1 18-120. 

^  Governor  Theophilus  Eaton,  Reverend  John  Davenport,  Isaac  Allcrton,  and  Thomas  Gregson.  Stiles, 
"History  of  .  .  .  the  Judges  of  Charles  I"  (1794),  p.  64,  cited  and  discussed  by  Isham  and  Brown,  "Con- 
necticut Houses,"  pp.   iio-iii. 

^  "History  of  New  England,"  Collections  of  the  Mass.  Hist.  Soe,  2d  ser.,  vol.  6  (1815),  p.  334. 

■*  See  the  individual  discussion  of  the  Eaton  house  below. 

12 


THE    SEA'ENTEENTH    CENTURY 

built   by   John    Davys,  joiner,  for   William    Rix,  a    weaver,  in    1640 — for  which 
Thomas  Lechtord  preserved  the  contract  in  his  "Note  Book": 

"One  framed  house  16  foot  long  &  14  foote  wyde,  w'*"  a  chamber  floare  finisht, 
summer  &  ioysts,  a  cellar  floare  w"'  ioysts  finisht,  the  roofe  and  walles  Clap- 
boarded  on  the  outsyde,  the  Chimney  framed  without  dawbing  to  be  done  with 
hewen  timber."'     In  other  words  this  was  a  story-and-a-half  hcnise  with  a  single 


Figure  4.     Whipple  house,  Ipswich,  Massachusetts.     Western  part  before  1 669.  eastern 
IV'i'i    .  part  before  16S2 

Courtesy  of  the  White  Pine  Bureau 


room  in  each  story.  The  contract  price  was  £21.  Such  were  the  great  majority 
ot  the  oldest  existing  houses  of  Providence  Plantation,  as  well  as  some  oi  those  of 
Newport  and  Narragansett.-  Such  too  were  the  initial  portions  of  some  still 
standing  in  Massachusetts,  for  instance  the  John  Balch  house  in  Beverly.'"  In 
Connecticut,  where  few  examples  are  preserved — even  in  Hartford  where  there  are 

'  Transactions  of  the  American  Antiquarian  Society,  vol.  7  (1885),  p.  302. 
-  Isham  and  Brown,  "Rhode  Island  Houses,"  passim. 

'  Ct.  the  drawins:  by  Isham  in  Bulletin  of  the  Society  for  the  Presenation  of  Nezv  England  Antiquities,  no.  15 
(1916),  p.  10. 

13 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

none — Norman  Isham  recognizes  the  type  as  one  which  appeared  as  an  inferior 
or  temporary  dwelHng.  The  Ipswich  records  show  that  houses  of  this  type  and 
size  were  commonly  erected  in  Massachusetts  in  1665  and  1670.^ 

By  1650  better  houses  were  generally  built  for  ministers  and  the  wealthier  mem- 
bers of  the  community.  Witness  the  parsonage  at  Beverly,  Massachusetts,  con- 
tracted tor  by  John  Norman,  March  23,  1656-7,  which  was  thirty-eight  feet  by 
seventeen,  and  eleven  feet  stud,  having  three  fireplaces;^  or  the  minister's  house 
at  New  London,  1666,  thirty-six  feet  long  and  twenty-five  broad,  "thirteen  foote 
stud  between  y"  joints."'^  The  latter  was  apparently  of  two  full  stories,  and  the 
same  may  perhaps  be  inferred  of  the  house  of  John  Whittingham  of  Ipswich  (died 
1648),  from  the  presence  of  hangings  in  the  chamber  over  the  parlor/ 

For  the  frame  houses  of  the  second  half  of  the  century  in  New  England,  how- 
ever, we  have  no  longer  merely  the  evidence  of  written  documents;  we  reach 
authentically  dated  buildings  which  are  still  preserved — much  modified,  rebuilt, 
and  restored  though  they  are — or  which  have  been  perpetuated  by  drawings,  en- 
gravings, or  early  photographs.  We  thus  secure  an  idea  not  only  of  accommo- 
dations and  materials,  but  henceforth  also  of  architectural  style.  From  them  it 
1  appears  that  the  Colonial  style  of  the  seventeenth  century  is  still  essentially 
'  mediaeval:  its  significant  element  is  structure;  form  and  details  continue  tradi- 
tions of  the  Middle  Ages. 

If  we  demand  rigorously  established  dating  as  a  foundation  for  the  study  of 
development  in  others,  we  are  limited  as  yet  to  some  ten  houses,  all  in  Essex 
County,  Massachusetts,  where  preservation  of  Colonial  buildings,  as  well  as  docu- 
mentary research  in  regard  to  them,  has  been  carried  further  than  elsewhere:^ 

1651      "Scotch  House"  (Boardman  house),  Saugus  (figure  3) 
Between  1651  and  1660     Eastern  part  of  Pickering  house,  Salem 
Before  1669     Western  part  of  Whipple  house,  Ipswich  (figure  4) 
Between  1661  and  1671     Narbonne  house,  Salem 
About  1 67 1     Western  part  of  Pickering  house,  Salem 

^  Waters,  "Homes  of  the  Puritans,"  Historical  Collections  of  the  Essex  Institute,  vol.  33  (1897),  pp.  50-51. 

"Quoted  in  full,  ib.,  pp.  52-53.  ^  Isham  and  Brown,  "Connecticut  Houses,"  pp.  159-160. 

■*  Waters,  op.  cit.,  pp.  49,  62. 

*  The  documentary  evidence  accepted  by  Isham  and  Brown  as  establishing  the  dates  of  those  seventeenth- 
century  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut  houses  on  which  their  dating  of  others  is  based  cannot  be  regarded  as 
really  conclusive.  Thus,  in  the  fundamental  case  of  the  "John  Clark  house"  in  Farinington,  the  deed  of 
1657  (p.  19),  on  the  basis  of  which  they  regard  it  as  having  been  "the  oldest  house  in  the  colony,"  does  not 
establish  more  than  that  there  was  a  dwelling-house  on  the  lot  in  that  year,  and  the  belief  that  the  house 
which  stood  in  1880  was  identical  with  this  and  was  not  a  successor,  is  based  on  details  merely  postulated 
as  early.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  Julius  Gay,  who  unearthed  the  documents,  himself  dates  the  house  1700! 
"Farmlngton"  (1906),  p.  7. 

14 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Finished  1675     Jonathan  Corwin  ("Witch")  house,  Salem 

Before   1680     Main  body  of  Turner  house   ("House  of  the  Seven  Gables"), 

Salem 
Before  1682     Eastern  part  of  Whipple  house,  Ipswich 
1683     Capen  house,  Topsfield  (iigures  5,  8) 

Between  1682  and  1693     Benjamin  Hooper  house  ("Old  Bakery"),  Salem 
After  1684     John  Ward  house,  Salem  (figure  6) 
Before   1692     South  wing  ot  Turner  house  ("House  of  the  Seven  Gables"), 

Salem 
After  169c;     Benaiah  Titcomb  house,  Newburyport 

These  are  supplemented,  so  tar  as  the  exterior  aspect  is  concerned,  by  old 
views  of  two  dated  houses  in  Boston  and  four  others  in  Salem  now  long  destroyed. 

1670     Henry  Bridgham  house  (" Julien's"),  Boston  (figure  7) 

Between  1673  and  1682     Deliverance  Parkman  house,  Salem 

After  1679     Daniel  Epes  house,  Salem 

1680     "Old  Feather  Store,"  Boston 

Between  1683  and  1692     Philip  English  house,  Salem 

After  1698     Hunt  house,  Salem 

All  these  were  originally  smiple  rectangular  houses  ot  one  or  two  rooms  in 
plan:  a  hall,  serving  also  as  kitchen,  and,  if  possible,  also  a  "parlour,"  containing 
one  of  the  beds.  Each  house  had  a  steep  gable  root,  a  single  great  chimney  (cen- 
tral in  the  houses  of  two  rooms),  and  stairs  winding  up  in  front  ot  this  in  a  space 
which  constituted  an  interior  entrance  "porch."  The  main  frame  was  of  heavy 
timbers  with  elaborate  jointing.  The  interiors  were  ot  the  simplest,  deriving 
their  character  from  the  direct  revelation  of  the  functional  elements,  especially 
from  the  huge  fireplace  spanned  by  a  great  beam,  and  trom  the  framing  of  the 
ceiling. 

Without  repeating  descriptions  of  the  individual  houses,  we  may  seek  to  de- 
termine the  course  of  ev^olution  in  different  elements,  not  merely  enumerating  the 
variations  ot  a  given  motive,  but  noting  the  duration  ot  its  use  and  seeing  whether 
there  were  any  transformations  with  the  nature  of  a  development. 

In  the  matter  of  accommodations,  as  should  really  he  expected,  differences 
were  less  a  matter  of  chronological  sequence  than  of  means.  Thus,  the  initial  por- 
tions of  the  Pickering,  Whipple,  Narbonne,  Hooper,  and  Ward  houses,  ranging  in 

16 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

date  from  about  1651  to  after  1684,  were  of  a  single  room  in  each  of  two  full  stories; 
the  "Scotch  House,"  the  Corwin  and  Capen  houses,  i6s;i  to  i68j.  were  of  two 
rooms  in  a  story.  Many  houses  originally  of  one-room  plan  were  subsequently 
lengthened  beyond  the  chimney:  the  Pickering  house  about  1671,  the  Whipple 
house  before  1682,  the  Hooper  house  not  until  well  into  the  eighteenth  century. 
Whether  the  second  room  belonged  to  the  original  construction  or  not,  functional 
considerations  took  precedence  oyer_sj/inrnetry  in  determining  the  relative  size  of 


Figure  6.     John  Ward  house,  Salem.     After  1684 
Courtesy  of  the  Essex  Institute 


the  two.     Symonds  wrote  in    1638,   "make  one  biger  than   the  other."     In   the 
Turner,  Whipple,  Capen,  Ward,  and  Hunt  houses,  at  least,  this  is  the  case.      Such. 
mediaeval  tolerance  of  asymmetry  persisted  long  after  the  abandonment  of  mediae- 
yal  details. 

Even  with  two  rooms  to  a  floor  the  houses  were  so  small  that  it  was  natural 
they  shouki  be  enlargeci  in  the  course  of  time.  A  characteristic  form  of  addition 
was  the  lean-to  at  the  rear,  roofed  by  an  extension  of  the  rear  slope  of  the  main 
roof.     Some  of  these  additions  were  made  very  early.    Thomas  Lechford  records 

17 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

a  document  stating  that  one  Brackenbury,  in  Boston,  "shall  have  .  .  .  liberty  to 
make  a  leanto  unto  the  end  of  the  parlor."^  Before  the  close  ot  the  century  houses 
were  built  with  a  lean-to  from  the  start.  The  agreement  ot  the  town  of  Deerfield, 
Massachusetts,  in  calling  John  Williams  as  its  minister  in  1686,  states:  "That  they 
will  build  him  a  hous:  42  toot  long,  20  foot  wide,  with  a  lento  of  the  back  side  of 
the  house."-  The  lean-to  was  ordinarily  of  only  one  full  story,  but  in  the  Picker- 
ing and  Whipple  houses  as  they  now  stand  it  is  of  two  stories.  The  raising  ot  the 
rear  roof  of  the  Pickering  house  to  this  height  did  not  occur  until  i~5i.''  Because 
of  the  central  chimney  the  rear  rooms  ot  such  houses  could  ordinarily  be  reached 
only  bv  traversing  those  in  front — economical  considerations  taking  precedence 
over  those  of  privacy. 

Another  accessory  not  uncommon  was  a  projecting  porch  with  a  "porch  cham- 
ber" over  it,  and  a  gable  to  the  front.  A  "porch  of  eight  toote  square"  was  to 
form  part  of  the  minister's  house  at  Cape  Ann  in  1657.^  A  porch  chamber  is  men- 
tioned in  Governor  Winthrop's  inventory  ot  1649,  as  we  have  seen,  and  it  appears 
in  other  inventories  such  as  that  of  James  Richards  in  Hartford,  1680.=  Mention 
of  a  porch  chamber,  to  be  sure,  may  perhaps  not  always  imply  that  the  porch  pro- 
jected, for  one  occurs  in  the  inventory  of  Richard  Smith,  Jr.,  of  Xarragansett  in 
1692,  vet  the  plan  of  his  house  shows  only  the  interior  porch  or  entry. ^  The  form 
and  appearance  of  the  projecting  porches  we  learn  trom  the  old  views  ot  the 
Bridgham,  Parkman,  and  Corwin  houses,  all  from  the  'seventies,  and  from  the 
Turner  house — some  with  the  second  story  ot  the  porch  overhanging  in  a  way 
soon  to  be  discussed. 

Many  of  these  houses  had  one  or  more  "lucome  windows,"  already  mentioned 
by  Symonds.  The  word,  with  many  variants,  is  derived  from  the  French  liicar>ie, 
dormer;  but  gabled  dormers  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Renaissance  rose  over  the 
face  of  the  wall  below,  and  thus  the  term  was  applied  to  a  gable  also.^  In  the 
form  of  subsidiary  gables  on  the  main  mass,  at  right  angles  to  the  principal  ridge, 
these  occurred  throughout  the  half  century  covered  in  the  "Scotch  House,"  the 
Pickering,  Bridgham,  Corwin,  Parkman,  Epes,  Turner,  Hooper,  English,  Ward, 
and  Hunt  houses,  and  the  "Old  Feather  Store."  They  were  lacking,  however,  in 
houses  precisely  contemporary  with  these:   the  Capen  house  and  others,  so  that 

i"Note  Book"  (1885),  p.  54. 

-  G.  Sheldon,  "History  of  Deerfield,"  vol.  I  (1895),  p.  197. 

^  See  the  individual  discussion  of  this  house,  infra. 

^Waters,  "Homes  of  the  Puritans,"  Historical  Collections  of  the  Essex  Institute,  vol.  33  (1897),  p.  53. 

=  Isham  and  Brown,  "Connecticut  Houses,"  p.  52,  note,  quoting  Hartford  Probate  Records,  vol.  4. 

^  lb.,  "Rhode  Island  Houses,"  p.  63  and  plate  52. 

'  E.  Moore,  "Suffolk  Words"  (1823),  p.  212,  quoted  in  "New  English  Dictionary." 

18 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

we  are  not  in  a  position  to  say  whether  use  at  this  time  represented  a  decrease  or 
an  increase  in  proportion  relative  to  the  earlier  decades  of  the  colony.  In  general 
they  corresponded  in  number  to  the  number  of  rooms  on  a  floor — a  single  one  in 
the  houses  with  end  chimney,  two  in  houses  with  central  chimney,  but,  if  we  may 
trust  old  views, ^  in  certain  instances  there  were  three:  the  Corwin  house  and  the 
undated  Governor  Bradstreet  house. 

A  feature  which  has  been  thought  to  undergo  a  definite  evolution  with  time, 
and  thus  incidentally  to  furnish  an  indication  of  date,  is  the  projection  of  the 
second  story  over  the  first,  common   also  in   England,  which   appears  in  man- 


Figure  7.     The  Bridgham  house  ("Julien's"),  Boston 
From  C.  Shaw:  Description  of  Boston  (1817) 


^] 


houses  in  the  colonies,  more  usually  as  a  framed  overhang.  It  was  not  uncommon 
for  the  lower  ends  of  the  second-story  posts  to  be  carved  into  pendants  or  drops. 
The  minister's  house  at  Cape  Ann  in  1657  was  to  be  "Jotted  ouer  one  foote  ech 
way. "'2  Another  reference,  which  reveals  the  terms  then  used,  occurs  in  Boston 
records  for  1663: 

"Upon  complaint  of  sundry  inhabitants,  of  hurt  done  and  further  danger  by  the  lownes 
of  Jetties  ouer  the  towne  land  it  is  therefore  ordered  that  noe  Jettie  nor  pendill  y'  shall 
be  erected  but  shall  be  full  8  foot  in  height  from  the  ground.   .  .  ."^ 

It  is  not  to  be  assumed  from  this  protest  that  jetties  were  then  first  coming 
into  use — a  sufficient  reason  for  it  would  be  the  closer  upbuilding  ot  the  town. 
Among  the  houses  we  have  been  studying,  the  Narbonne  house,  like  the  west- 

'  See  note,  p.  29. 

■  Waters,  "Homes  of  the  Puritans,"  Historical  Collections  of  the  Essex  Institute,  vol.  33  (1897),  p.  53. 

^"Boston  Town  Records,  1660-1701"  (l88l),  p.  17. 

19 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


ern  end  of  the  Whipple  house,  has  no  overhang.  The  "Scotch  House,"  the  Cor- 
win,  Hooper,  and  Capen  houses,  covering  the  years  from  1651  to  1683,  had  each 
such  a  framed  overhang  along  the  front  only.  The  Ward  house  and  the  Hunt 
house  have  one  on  one  end  also.  The  Bridgham  house  seems  to  have  had  one, 
and  the  Epes  house,  the  Old  Feather  Store,  and  the  Philip  English  house  likewise 
had  an  overhang  on  one  end  if  not  on  both,  so  that  the  end  overhang  was  used  at 


5lpf  iEif^  '  ;f?' 


CWtN  HOUSt. 


Copyright,  IQlt),  i'y  Paitl  If'eitze/  uiui  Maiirui:  K'>:U-oiv 

Figure  8.     Capen  house,  Topsfield,  Massachusetts.      Plan  and  elevations 
From  Donald  Millar:  Measured  Drawings  of  Some  Colonial  and  Georgian  Houses 


least  from  1670  to  1698.  The  single  dated  instance  of  a  hewn  overhang,  on  the 
east  end  of  the  Whipple  house,  Ipswich  (figure  4),  between  1669  and  1682,  is  also 
contemporary  with  these.  None  of  the  original  drops  or  pendills  preserved  occurs 
in  the  accurately  dated  examples. 

Messrs.  Isham  and  Brown,  believing  in  a  progressive  abandonment  of  imported 
features,  supposed  with  very  inaciequate  documentary  evidence  that  houses  with 
end  overhangs  in  the  Connecticut  Colony  were  older  than  those  with  overhangs 
on   the  front  only,  and  that  the  framed  overhang  as  a  whole  disappeared  after 

20 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

1675.-'  Joseph  Everett  Chandler,  on  the  other  hand,  considers  that  the  overhangs 
"were  not  usually  of  the  earliest  date,  but  came  along  after  the  buildings  with 
a  straight  front  had  been  constructed  for  some  time."-  Our  group  of  Massa- 
chusetts houses  indicates  that  there  at  least  the  framed  overhang  appeared  in 
houses  as  early  as  any  now  remaining,  that  it  persisted  until  the  end  of  the 
century,  and  that  the  end  overhang  is  no  sign  of  priority.  The  insecure  dating  of 
houses  elsewhere  makes  it  possible  that  these  conclusions  apply  more  widely,  and 
that  the  course  oi  development  in  the  Connecticut  Colony  has  been  misconceiv^ed. 

Gable-ends  framed  to  overhang  the  second  story  appear  in  the  Bridgham 
house,  the  Feather  Store,  the  Capen  house — thus  1670  to  1684;  and  the  east  gable 
of  the  \Yhipple  house,  from  the  same  period,  has  a  hewn  overhang.  In  the  Capen 
house  an  original  sawn  bracket  remains  in  the  centre  of  the  gable,  and  similar  ones 
appear  in  the  views  of  the  Feather  Store,  likewise  from  the  'eighties.  ^         ^ 

The  frame  itself,  in  its  methods  of  jointing  and  of  treatment  by  bracketing  anfl    \j^ 

chamfering,  offers  rich  material  for  the  study  of  development.     The  great  diversity. 

existing  in  examples  preserved  in  Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut  has  been  admira- 
bly shown  by  Messrs.  Isham  and  Brown.  Unfortunately,  the  dates  of  the  houses 
there  cannot  be  well  enough  established  to  demonstrate  the  evolution  which  gov- 
erns this  variety.  The  chamfers  in  dated  houses  elsewhere  do  not  indicate  that 
the  variations  of  this  feature  represent  successive  stages  of  evolution.  For  instance, 
there  is  a  marked  difference  between  those  in  the  hall  and  in  the  parlor  of  the 
Capen  house,  built  all  at  once.  Those  of  the  notable  Tufts  house,  of  brick,  1677 
to  1680,  are  much  more  elaborate  than  those  of  the  \Yard  house,  after  1684.  Dif- 
ference of  means  would  seem  to  have  had  an  important  influence  in  the  matter. 

The  filling  and  covering  of  the  frame  present  interesting  problems.  In  Eng-^^^^ 
land  the  most  primitive  form  of  filling,  still  common  in  many  districts,  was  of 
wattle  daubed  on  one  side  or  both  with  clay,  usually  mixed  with  hay  or  straw, 
and  finished  with  a  thin  coat  of  lime  plaster  for  greater  resistance  to  rain.''  In 
work  of  superior  quality  laths  were  often  used  instead  of  wattle,  still  usually  coated 
with  clay,  which  was  regarded  in  England  as  having  its  own  advantages.^  Some- 
times the  clay  was  used  alone  as  a  filling.^  In  "cat  and  daub"  the  cats  were 
pieces  of  "straw  and  clay  worked  together  into  pretty  large  rolls  and  laid  between 
the  wooden  posts.""  Closely  allied  to  this  was  the  use  of  sun-dried  bricks,  lumps 
of  clay  pressed  in  moulds  of  any  convenient  size,  the  predecessors  of  burnt  brick  for 

'"Connecticut  Houses,"  pp.  32,  233.  -"The  Colonial  House"  (1916),  p.   120. 

'Innocent,  "English  Building  Construction,"  pp.  126-134,  142. 
*  lb.,  pp.  138-142.  'lb.,  p.  133. 

'"New  English  Dictionar)-,"  article  Cat-and-CIay. 

21 


10 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


this  purpose.^  Different  districts,  as  is  well  known,  show  characteristic  preferences; 
it  is  less  well  known  that  great  variety  may  be  found  in  a  single  English  district. 
Thus,  in  villages  near  Cambridge  showing  characteristics  of  East  Anglia,  Innocent 
found,  besides  walls  of  chalk  and  burnt  brick,  others  of  sun-dried  brick,  of  stud- 
work  with  lath  and  plaster,  of  wattle  work,  and  of  horizontal  weather-boarding.^ 
A  similar  variety  in  wall  fillings,  among  which  all  the  methods  enumerated 
occur,  is  found  in  early  New  England.  Donald  Millar  informs  us  that  a  sec- 
tion ot  daubed  wattle  is  still  in  place  in 
the  Fairbanks  house  in  Dedham.'  Clay' 
anci  hay  alone  as  a  filling  formerly  per- 
sisted in  part  of  the  back  wall  of  the  Cor- 
win  house  in  Salem,  finished  1675.*  The 
filling  of  the  walls  of  the  old  Stoughton 
house  at  Windsor,  ciestroyed  in  1809,  was 
described  in  1802  as  "built  of  mud  and 
stones  built  in  on  the  outside  between  the 
joists  or  timbers.""  When  bricks  were 
used,  many  of  them,  as  Mr.  Isham  re- 
marked," were  little  better  than  sun-dried. 
Such  bricks  appear  in  what  was  once  an 
outside  wall  of  the  Ward  house,  Salem, 
after  1684  (figure  9). 

In  all  these  cases  the  filling  of  the 
frame  was  found  covered  on  the  exterior 
with  some  form  of  wooden  boarding. 
That  such  a  covering  was  commonly  used 
within  a  few  years  of  the  settlement  can- 
not be  doubted.  Symonds's  house  in  1638  was,  as  we  have  seen,  to  be  "covered 
with  very  good  oak-hart  inch  board,"  and  was  "to  have  the  walls  without  to  be 
all  clapboarded  beside  the  clay  walls."  The  contract  for  the  building  of  the 
church  at  Salem  in  1639  called  for  it  "to  be  covered  with  xYi  plank  and  with 
board    upon    that    to   meet   close,"  as  well    as  "to  be  sufficientlie   finished  with 

'"English  Buildins  Construction,"  p.  154.  "lb.,  p.  156. 

'  For  comparison  we  may  cite  the  description  of  the  early  houses  at  Germantown,  Pennsylvania,  by 
J.  F.  Watson,  "Annals  of  Philadelphia,"  2d  ed.  (1844),  vol.  2,  p.  19:  "Some  old  houses  seem  to  be  made  with 
log  frames  and  the  interstices  filled  with  wattles,  river  rushes,  and  clay  intermixed." 

^  Isham  and  Brown,  "  Connecticut  Houses,"  p.  198,  where  the  house  is  spoken  of  as  the  Roger  Williams  house. 

^  Ih.,  p.  248,  quoting  Oliver  Ellsworth,  Jr.,  from  Stiles,  "Ancient  Windsor,"  vol.  I,  p.  142. 

«/i.,  p.  181. 


Figure  9.     Brick  filling  from  the  Ward 
house,  Salem 

Courtesy  of  the  Essex  Institute 


11 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

daubings."^  Jasper  Bankers  wrote  in  1679,  "Houses  in  Boston  are  made  of  thin 
small  cedar  shingles,  nailed  against  frames  and  then  filled  with  brick  and  other 
stuff."-  No  instance  is  definitely  known  of  a  framed  building  erected  by  the 
English  colonists  in  which  the  filling  of  the  frame  was  exposed  on  the  exterior 
as  "half  timber."  Nevertheless,  as  Messrs.  Isham  and  Brown  have  recognized, 
we  do  not  need  to  assume  that  every  house  was  clapboarded  (or  boarded)  here 
during   the  first   four  or  five  years.      A  Moravian  schoolhouse  of  exposed  half- 


M|  1  1  I 

Fro?n  a  photograph  by  H.  Jl'inslow  Fegley 

Figure  10.     Moravian  schoolhouse,  Oley  Township,  Pennsylvania.      1743  to  1745 

timber,  built  174J  to  I745,''  still  stands  in  Oley  Township,  Berks  County,  Penn- 
sylvania (figure  10),  and  other  buildings  of  the  Pennsylvania  Germans  show  the 
same  construction.''  One  should  not  overlook  that  Symonds  told  \Yinthrop  the 
inch  board  were  "to  be  tacked  on  only  for  the  present  as  you  tould  me,''  which 
might  suggest  that  this  covering  was  an  addition  recommended  by  experience 
during  the  first  eight  years  of  the  colony.    A  reason  for  such  an  addition,  besides 

'J.  B.  Felt,  "Annals  of  Salem"  (1827),  p.  119. 

■  Collections  of  the  Long  Island  Historical  Society,  vol.  I  (1867),  p.  394. 

'Daniel  Miller,  "The  Early  Moravian  Settlements  in   Berks  County,"  in   Transactions  of  the  Historical 
Society  of  Berks  County,  vol.  2  (1910),  p.  318. 

■•A.  L.  Kocher,  "Early  Architecture  of  Pennsylvania,"  Architectural  Record,  vol.  49  (1921),  pp.  31-47. 

23 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

the  greater  severity  of  American  climate,  may  well  have  lain  in  the  great  diffi- 
culty, which  we  shall  note  in  Massachusetts  and  in  the  Connecticut  Colony,  of 
securing  lime  for  the  finishing  coat  ot  the  filling.  On  the  other  hand,  the  sugges- 
tion of  Isham  and  Brown  that  "the  idea  ...  of  covering  the  filling  of  the  timber 
frame  with  overlapping  boards  may  not  have  been  a  new  thing  to  our  ancestors" 
- — ^receives  support  from  recent  study  of  English  building.  Whereas  Ralph  Nevill 
^oubted  whether  the  covering  of  frames  by  tiles  and  apparently  also  by  weather- 
boards, as  in  Kent,  was  ever  prior  to  1730,^  Innocent  points  out  very  early  ex- 
amples of  the  use  of  weather-boards,  in  some  cases  even  without  any  filling.- 

Instead  of  weather-boards  or  clapboards,  plaster  worked  in  relief  was  later 
occasionally  used  as  a  cov'ering  tor  frame  and  filling,  as  was  the  case  at  the  same 
time  in  some  parts  of  England,  especially  in  East  Anglia.^  Speaking  in  1795  of 
the  various  modes  of  building  at  successive  periocis  in  Boston,  Jeremy  Belknap 
says:  "The  houses  and  warehouses  near  the  town  dock,  which  were  rebuilt  after 
the  great  fire  of  1679,  were  either  constructed  o[  brick,  or  plastered  on  the  outside 
with  a  strong  cement,  intermixed  with  gravel  and  glass  and  slated  on  the  top. 
Several  of  these  plastered  houses  are  yet  remaining  in  Ann-street,  in  their  original 
form;  others  have  been  altered  and  repaired."^  One  ot  these  houses  in  Ann  Street 
was  the  "Old  Feather  Store,"  of  which  we  may  quote  from  the  earliest  and  tullest 
description.  "The  outside  is  covered  with  plastering  or  what  is  commonly  called 
rough-cast.  But  instead  of  pebbles  .  .  .  broken  glass  was  used.  The  glass  ap- 
pears like  that  of  common  junk  bottles,  broken  into  pieces  of  about  half  an  inch 
in  diameter,  the  sharp  corners  ot  which  penetrate  the  cement  in  such  a  manner, 
that  this  great  lapse  of  years  has  macie  no  perceptible  effect  upon  them.  The 
figures  1680  were  impressed  into  the  rough-cast  to  show  the  year  of  its  erection, 
and  are  now  perfectly  legible.  The  surtace  was  also  variegated  with  ornamental 
squares,  diamonds  and  flower-cie-luce."^  A  large  section  ot  the  plaster  gable  trom 
the  house  of  Colonel  William  Browne  in  Salem,  atter  1664,"  showing  a  similar  orna- 
ment (figure  11),  is  preserved  at  the  Essex  Institute,  and  is  likewise  rough-cast, 
with  broken  glass  ot  a  brownish  green. 

Not  only  in  the  first  rude  shelters,  but  in  the  frame  houses  of  many  years  fol- 

'"Old  Cott.ige  and  Domestic  Architecture  in  South  West  Surrey"  (2d  ed.,  l88q),  pp.  21-22. 

"  "English  Building  Construction,"  pp.  116-118.  He  writes  us,  coupling  with  his  opinion  that  of  J.  Ken- 
worthy.  "We  feel  sure  that  such  boarding  was  in  use  here  long  before  the  settlement  of  America." 

^  B.  Oliver,  "Old  Houses  and  Village  Buildings  in  East  Anglia"  (1912),  pp.  56,  58,  cites  houses  dated  1685 
and  1692. 

■•  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Societv,  1st  ser.,  vol.  4,  pp.  189-190. 

■■  C.  H.  Snow,  "History  of  Boston"  (2d  ed.,  1828),  p.  167. 

*  Browne  acquired  the  lot  August  3,  1664,  Essex  Antiquarian,  vol.  8  (1904),  p.  114. 

24 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 


Figure  ii.  Rough-cast 
ornament  from  the  Browne 
house,  Salem.    After  1664 

Courtes}'  of  the  Essex 
Institute 


lowing,  the  roofs  were  frequently  covered  with  thatch.  References  to  thatch 
abound  in  Winthnjp's  journal  and  other  early  records.  Mr.  Isham  cites  a  court 
order  in  New  Haven  in  1640  regulating  the  wages  of  "a  skilfull  thatcher,  working 
diligently,"  and  a  mention  of  thatch  by  Increase  Mather  in  Northampton  in  1664.^ 
A  house  with  a  roof  of  thatch  was  built  in  Ipswich,  Massachusetts,  in  1657,'-  and 
thatching  tools  are  mentioned  at  Lancaster  in  an  inventory  of  1662.'  In  1671  the 
records  speak  of  the  burning  of  a  thatched  house  in  Haver- 
hill.^ ^Yhereas  in  England,  however,  thatch  continued  to 
be  the  usual  roofing  for  humbler  dwellings  of  many  dis- 
tricts until  the  later  eighteenth  century,  and  still  remains 
in  use  there,  in  America  the  dates  given  constitute  ap- 
proximately the  final  limits  of  its  use  and  persistence. 
That  this  was  true  was  due  not  merely  to  greater  severity 
of  climate  than  in  England,  but  to  greater  a-vailability 
of  a  better  material.  Many  years  before  this,  wooden 
shingles  had  been  adopted  as  the  usual  material  for  roof- 
ing in  the  colonies.  Shingles  had  been  common  in  Eng- 
land down  through  the  fourteenth  century,  and  even  to-ciay 

remain  in  use  for  church  spires  in  the  southeastern  counties,^  although  now  gen- 
erally superseded  by  slate  and  tile.  Shingles  in  lengths  varying  from  fourteen 
inches  to  three  feet  are  familiarly  mentioned  in  court  orders  in  New  Haven  in  1640 
and  1 641,  immediately  after  the  settlement.  Whereas  the  town  barn  in  Windsor, 
Connecticut,  in  16 ^g,  was  to  be  "repaired  and  thatched,"  the  meeting-house  there 
in  the  following  year  was  to  be  shingled.''  Winthrop  wrote  in  1646  as  if  roofs  other 
than  thatch  were  by  that  time  not  uncommon  in  Boston.'''  The  "Perfect  Descrip- 
tion of  Virginia"  in  1649  speaks  of  houses  "covered  with  Shingell  for  Tyle."^ 

In  the  early  houses  of  frame,  and  in  many  long  afterward,  the  chimneys  were 
constructed  of  wood  and  clay.  In  Massachusetts,  although  Dudley  wrote  in  1631, 
"in  our  new  towne  intended  to  be  builded,  we  haue  ordered  that  noe  man  there 
shall  build  his  chimney  with  wood  .   .  .,"•'  Symonds  proposed  wood  for  his  chim- 

'  "Connecticut  Houses,"  p.  230,  notes. 

-Waters,  "Homes  of  the  Puritans,"  Histnrical  Collections  of  the  Essex  Institute,  vol.  33  (1897),  p.  51. 
'  \\  eeden,  "Economic  Histor\'  of  New  England,"  p.  214,  note. 
Hi.  \V.  Chase,  "HavethiU"  (1861),  p.  IIS^ 
Innocent,  "English  Building  Construction,"  pp.  l84-l8i;;  also  VV.  Levburn,  "A  Compendium  of  the  Art 
of  Building"  (1734),  which  speaks  of  them  as  "very  chargeable." 


''"Connecticut  Houses,"  pp.  249- 


p.  264. 


"History  of  New  England"  (1825  ed.),  vol. 
»  Force,  tracts,  vol.  2  (1838),  VIH,  p.  7. 
"  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  1st  ser.,  vol.  8,  p.  46. 


25 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

neys  in  1638,  as  we  have  seen;  William  Rix's  chimney  in  1640  was  to  be  "framed 
without  dawbing  to  be  done  with  hewen  timber";  and  George  Norton's  new  house 
in  1656,  otherwise  like  a  certain  house  with  brick  chimneys,  was  to  have  instead, 
"sufficiently  catted  chimneys."'  In  Connecticut  chimneys  of  wood  and  clay  were 
in  use  in  1639,  and  may  have  persisted  until  1706  when  the  last  chimney-viewer  of 
Hartford  was  elected."  That  they  still  commonly  existed  outside  of  New  England 
even  after  the  Revolution  may  be  inferred  from  reiterated  observations  by  Wash- 
ington during  his  tour  of  the  eastern  states  in  1789,  after  leaving  New  York,  that 
"no  dwelling  house  is  seen  without  a  Stone  or  Brick  Chimney."^  Isham  recog- 
nized that  they  were  not  "so  much  a  makeshift  of  the  frontier  as  many  imagine,"'' 
and  Innocent  multiplies  instances  in  which  they  have  remained  in  use  in  England 
in  the  nineteenth  century. °  It  should  be  noted  concerning  chimneys,  as  was 
remarked  of  the  houses  as  a  whole,  that  there  is  no  mention  ot  logs  laid  cob  fashion, 
according  to  the  supposition  of  most  writers.  In  every  case  they  seem  to  have 
been  supported  by  upright  posts.  Symonds  wished  "the  frames  of  the  chimnyes 
to  be  stronger  than  ordinary."  The  assumption  sometimes  made  that  "catted" 
meant  cobbed,  we  have  seen  to  be  a  misconception. 

By  the  middle  of  the  seventeenth  century  chimneys  of  masonry  were  used  in 
houses  of  frame.  The  "Perfect  Description  of  Virginia"  (1649)  states  that  chim- 
neys were  constructed  of  brick. "^  William  Fitzhugh  wrote  in  1686  that  all  the 
dwellings  on  his  plantation  were  furnished  with  chimneys  of  brick,"  but,  although 
the  same  was  doubtless  true  of  planters  of  equal  prominence,  the  implication  is 
that  it  was  still  by  no  means  universal.  Brick  chimneys  are  mentioned  in  the 
records  of  Hartford  in  1639.^  They  existed  in  the  Corwin  house  in  Salem  before 
its  remodelling  in  1675,  when  the  contract  called  for  their  rebuilding,  the  central 
one  with  five  fireplaces.^  Where  conditions  favored,  as  in  Connecticut  and  Rhode 
Island,  chimneys  were  built  of  stone  at  a  very  early  date,  and  this  remained 
characteristic  throughout  the  seventeenth  century.  The  minister's  house  at  New 
London  in  1661  was  to  have  "a  stack  of  stone  chimneys  in  the  midst."'"  In  form 
the  chimneys,  as  they  appear  above  the  roof  of  framed  houses,  often  show  nar- 

'  J.  B.  Felt,  "Annals  of  Salem,"  2d  ed.  (1845),  p.  401. 
^  Isham  and  Brown,  "Connecticut  Houses,"  pp.  188-190. 
'"Diary  of  George  Washington,  1789-1791"  (i860),  p.  20,  also  p.  29. 
'' "Connecticut  Houses,"  p.  189. 

^  "English  Building  Construction,"  p.  269.     See  also  S.  O.  Addy,  "Evolution  of  the  English  House"  (1898), 
p.  115,  and  J.  L.  Bishop,  "History  of  American  Manufactures"  (1861),  vol.  I,  p.  219. 
"  Reprinted  by  P.  Force,  Tracts,  vol.  2,  VHI,  p.  7. 
'  Bruce,  "Economic  History  of  Virginia,"  vol.  2,  p.  143. 
*  Isham  and  Brown,  "Connecticut  Houses,"  p.  188. 
^  Essex  Antiquarian,  vol.  7  (1903),  p.  169.  '""Connecticut  Houses,"  p.   159. 

26 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

row  pilaster-like  strips  on  the  lace,  or  a  series  of  planes  receding  either  way 
Irom  the  centre.  Among  dated  houses  the  former  scheme  occurs  in  the  "Scotch 
House,"  1651,  and  the  Corwin  house,  1675;  the  latter  in  the  Pickering,  Bridgham, 
Parkman,  and  Hunt  houses,  spanning  the  half-century.  As  we  know  in  the  case 
of  the  Corwin  house,  even  brick  chimneys  were  sometimes  rebuilt,  so  that  one  can 
scarcely  be  certain,  in  any  event,  of  priority  or  development. 

In  the  seventeenth  century,  in  the  colonies  and  even  in  England,  glass  windows 
were  by  no  means  so  universal  as  may  be  supposed.  The  "current  shutting  draw 
windows"  of  Symonds's  house  in  1638,  "having  respect  both  to  present  and  future 
use,"  were  doubtless  sliding  panels  of  board,  closing  windows  which  were  later  to 
be  provided  with  glass.  In  "Leah  and  Rachel"  (1656),  Virginia  buildings  are 
spoken  ot  as  having  "if  not  glazed  windows,  shutters  which  are  made  very  pritty 
and  convenient."'  Shutters  taking  the  place  of  sash  were  common  in  the  seven- 
teenth century  in  England."  John  Aubrey,  born  1626,  writes  of  glass  windows, 
"In  my  own  time,  before  the  Civil  Wars,  copyholders  and  poor  people  had  none 
in  Hertfordshire,  Monmouthshire,  and  Salop;  it  is  so  still."'  Edward  Winslow, 
writing  from  Plymouth  in  1621,  says:  "Bring  paper  and  linseed  oil  for  your  win- 
dows."^ In  1629,  however,  Francis  Higginson,  in  counselling  emigrants  to  Massa- 
chusetts Bay,  writes:  "Be  sure  to  furnish  yourselves  with  .  .  .  glass  for  windows."^ 
The  suggestion  tor  supplies  needed  by  a  colonist  in  Maryland,  1635,  include 
"Glasse  and  Leade  for  his  windowes,"^  and  by  an  adventurer  in  New  Albion,  on 
the  Delaware,  1648,  "glasse  casements  for  his  house."'' 

These,  which  were  universal  in  the  better  houses  after  1650,  were  hinged  case- 
ment sash  with  leaded  panes,  either  diamond  or  oblong  in  shape,  a  considerable 
number  of  which  are  preserved,  although  I  know  no  case  of  one  remaining  in  its 
original  position.^  Sash  windows,  which  Samuel  Sewall  mentions  in  Boston  in 
1714,  did  not  become  common  in  England,  even  for  houses  of  the  better  sort, 
until  the  reign  of  William  III,  and  their  introduction  into  the  provinces  was  very 
gradual.^     In  some  retired  districts  and  villages  they  did  not  appear  until  1725 

'  Reprinted  by  P.  Force,  Tracts,  vol.  3  (1844),  XIV,  p.  18. 

'Innocent,  "English  Building  Construction,"  pp.  253-255. 

'Quoted  by  Addy,  "Evolution  of  the  English  House,"  p.  121. 

■•"Relation  or  lournall"  (1622),  reprinted  in  A.  Young,  "Chronicles  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers"  (1841), 
p.  237,  with  a  note  giving  further  references  as  to  the  rarity  of  glass  in  England. 

''Young,  "Chronicles  of  Massachusetts,"  p.  264. 

"  "A  Relation  of  Maryland,"  in  C.  C.  Hall,  "Narratives  of  Early  Maryland"  (iqio),  p.  98. 

'  Force,  Tracts,  vol.  2,  VII,  p.  32. 

^  CJ.  the  discussion  of  early  sash  by  G.  F.  Dow  in  "Old-time  New  England,"  vol.  12  (1921),  pp.  8-9, 
supplemented  on  p.  32. 

"Innocent,  "English  Building  Construction,"  p.  262. 

27 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


or  even  1750.  Many  English  examples  of  mullioned  casements  are  certainly  as 
late  as  1730;  they  appear  in  an  elevation  for  a  farmhouse,  in  a  work  otherwise 
purely  Georgian,  in  1787  !^     Colonel  Timothy  Pickering,  of  Salem,  furnishes  the 

latest  instance  known  to  me  of  the  re- 
newal of  leaded  casements  in  America  in 
1751.^  William  Bentley  writes  of  seeing 
them  still  in  place  in  old  Salem  houses 
in  1794  and  1796;^  some  remained  in  Bos- 
ton as  late  as  1817,''  and  in  Philadelphia 
even  in  1830.^  Normally  two  or  more 
of  these  sash  were  grouped,  except  in 
the  upper  entry,  the  garret,  and  per- 
haps the  end,  where  single  sash  were 
common.  It  we  accept  the  conscien- 
tiousness of  the  restorations  in  following 
the  old  mortises,  we  find  banks  of  three 
sash  in  the  principal  rooms  of  the  Whipple 
and  Hooper  houses,  a  few  years  apart. 
Only  for  the  Capen  and  "Scotch"  houses 
is  it  believed — on  the  high  authority  of 
Messrs.  Dow  and  Millar — that  single 
casements  were  employed  throughout 
from  the  start. 

Only  two  original  doors  of  the  seven- 
teenth  century  have  come  down   to  us,  | 
the  more  important  being  that  <  >}  the  John 
Shekion  house  in  Deerfield,  prescr\-ed  by^- 
the  Pocumtuck  "Willev  Memorial  Asso- 


CO) 


-,!/</,  ir  Fr, 


Figure  12.     Door  of  the  Sheldon  house,  Deer- 
field,  Massachusetts.     Before  1704 


ciatloli  for  its^role  in  the  Indian  attack 
of  1704  (figure  12).    It  is  of  wide  boards^, 
in  two  thicknesses,  vertical  outside,  horizontal  inside,  studded  with  wrought  nails 
in  diagonal  lines,  as  was  common  in  England.'"'     Part  of  a  similar  cioor  was  found 
in  restoring  the  Turner  house,  Salem.     Doorheads  with  an  ogee  curve  are  shown 

'  W.  Pain,  "Builder's  Golden  Rule,"  3d  ed.  (1787),  plate  91. 
-Quoted  in  F.  L.  Lee's  "Scrap  Book  I,"  p.  191,  at  the  Essex  Institute. 

■""Diary,"  vol.  2  (1907),  pp.  115  and  172.  ■■  C.  Shaw,  "Description  of  Boston"  (1817),  p.  291. 

*  J.  F.  Watson,  "Annals  of  Philadelphia"  (1830),  p.  198. 

'^  R.  Nevill,  "Old  Cottage  and  Domestic  Architecture,"  p.  41;  Innocent,  "English  Building  Construction," 
figs.  63,  64 

28 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

in  old  views  of  the  Parkman  house,  built  between  1673  and  1682,  and  the  Governor 
Bradstreet  house'  there,  from  the  same  general  period. 

The  interior  face  of  the  frame  walls  during  the  seventeenth  century,  in  most 
of  the  New  England  colonies,  was  frequently  sheathed  with  wide  boards,  grooved 
together  and^often-ehamfered  onrtoulded  at  the  joints,  and  similar  sheathing  was 
used  for  partitions  (figure  13).     In  England  such  boarding,  generally  vertical,  was 


Figure  13.     Parlor  of  the  Capen  house,  Topsfield 


common  in  partitions  of  mediaeval  and  Renaissance  buildings."  On  outer  walls 
it  was  horizontal,  on  partition  walls,  generally  vertical;  and  the  differences  seem 
to  have  been  matters  of  local  variety  rather  than  of  developmental  sequence.  The 
earliest  record  occurs  in  the  well-known  passage  of  Winthrop's  journal  regarding 
Thomas  Dudley's  house  at  Cambridge:  "The  governor  having  formerly  told  him, 
that  he  did  not  well  to  bestow  such  care  about  wainscoting  and  adorning  his  house, 

'Water-color  painting  at  the  Essex  Institute,  "probably  painted  by  Barthoie  in  1819."  The  house  was 
demolished  by  1755.  See  the  discussion  bv  R.  S.  Rantoul  in  Historical  Collections  of  the  Essex  Institute, 
vol.  24  (1887),  pp.  247-248. 

''Innocent,  "English  Building  Construction,"  pp.  114-11;,  fig.  44. 

29 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

in  the  beginning  ot  a  plantation  .  .  .  his  answer  now  was,  that  it  was  for  the 
warmth  of  his  house,  and  the  charge  was  but  little,  being  but  clapboards  nailed  to 
the  wall  in  the  form  of  wainscot."^  Messrs.  Isham  and  Brown  state  that  wainscot 
sheathing  remained  in  use  in  Connecticut  houses  until  about  17J5-40.-  Just  at 
the  close  of  the  century  began  the  transition  to  panelling.  Thus  the  house  built 
by  Benaiah  Titcomb  in  Newburyport,  alter  1695,  has  strips  fastened  over  the 
sheathing  to  constitute  panels. 

Interior  plastering  in  the  form  of  clay  daub  antedated  even  the  building  of 
houses  of  frame,  and  must  have  been  visible  in  the  inside  of  wattle  filling  in  those 
earliest  frame  houses  in  which  Dudley's  extravagance  of  wainscot  had  not  been 
indulged.  Clay  continued  in  use  long  after  the  adoption  of  laths  and  brick  filling 
for  the  frame.  Records  of  the  New  Haven  Colony  in  1641  mention  clay  and  hay 
as  well  as  lime  and  hair.''  In  praising  Virginia  buildings  as  superior  to  ordinary 
houses  in  England  the  author  of  "Leah  and  Rachel"  (1656)  speaks  of  the  rooms 
as  "daubed  and  white-limed."^  In  Massachusetts  Bay,  where  lime  was  scarce, 
the  town  of  Dedham  voted  in  1657  to  "have  the  meeting  house  lathed  upon  the 
inside  and  so  daubed  and  whited  over,  workmanlike."^  As  late  as  1675,  in  the 
Corwin  house  in  Salem,  clay  plaster  was  left  exposed  in  the  walls  of  the  garret, 
and  was  used  as  a  first  coat  in  all  the  rooms.  We  must  infer  from  the  terms  of  the 
contract  with  Daniel  Andrews  that  a  finishing  coat  of  lime  was  by  no  means  re- 
garded as  universal: 

"As  for  lathing  and  plaistering  he  is  to  lath  and  siele  the  4  rooms  ot  the  house  betwixt 
the  joists  overhead  with  a  coat  of  lime  and  haire  upon  the  clay,  also  to  fill  the  gable  ends 
of  the  house  with  brick  and  plaister  them  with  clay.  .  .  .  To  lath  and  plaister  the  par- 
titions of  the  house  with  clay  and  lime,  and  to  fill,  lath  and  plaister  with  bricks  and  clay 
the  porch  and  porch  chamber  and  to  plaister  with  lime  and  hair  besides;  and  to  siele  and 
lath  them  overhead  with  lime;  also  to  fill,  lath  and  plaister  the  kitchen  up  to  the  wall 
plate  on  every  side."^ 

In  the  German  houses  of  Pennsylvania  the  use  ot  clay  persisted  much  later  still. ^ 
The  staircases  in  those  seventeenth-century  houses  where  they  are  preserved 
uniformly  had  winders  at  either  end,  with  at  most  a  short  straight  run  between. 
Along  this  in  the  more  elaborate  examples,  between  the  newel  posts  at  the  turns, 
was  a  short  range  of  balusters.     Stair  "banisters"  in  the  house  of  Colonel  Daniel 

'  "History  of  New  England"  (1825  ed.)-  vol.  i,  p.  32.  -  "Connecticut  Houses,"  p.  257. 

'  Isham  and  Brown,  "Connecticut  Houses,"  p.  198.  ^  Force,  Tracts,  vol.  3,  XIV,  p.  18. 

'"' Quoted  by  Palfrey,  "History  of  New  England,"  vol.  2  (i860),  p.  59,  note. 

^  Essex  Antiquarian,  vol.  7  (1903),  p.  169. 

"Watson,  "Annals  of  Philadelphia,"  2d  ed.  (1844),  vol.  2,  p.  18. 

30 


Copyrtght  by  the  Topsjleld Histonc.tl  .s.^u/y 

Figure  14.     Stairs  of  the  Capen  house,  Topstield 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Parke  are  mentioned  in  a  \'irginia  deposition  of  1665.^  Although  in  Rhode  Island 
they  were  often  sawn  to  a  profile,-  and  sawn  balusters  appear  as  late  as  1749  in  the 
attic  stairs  of  the  Van  Cortlandt  house  in  New  York  City,  they  were  usually  turned 
in  a  lathe.  Messrs.  Isham  and  Brown  state  that  "a  judgment  as  to  the  age  of  the 
stair  can  be  made  by  noting  the  turning  ot  these  balusters.  The  stumpy  forms, 
with  short  curves,  are  the  older."  This  is  true  of  the  seventeenth-century  forms 
as  a  whole,  as  against  the  eighteenth.  Whether  the  nature  of  any  evolution 
within  the  seventeenth  century  can  be  established  is  very  questionable,  however, 
owing  to  the  small  number  of  really  dated  examples  of  original  stairs.  Of  these 
the  Corwin  house,  before  1775,  has  banisters  with  the  turneci  part  ten  inches  by 
two  and  one-half  inches;  the  Capen  house,  1683  (figure  14),  thirteen  and  one-half 
inches  by  one  and  three-quarter  inches;  but  the  Titcomb  house,  Newburyport, 
after  169';,  has  heavier  proportions  once  more,  with  the  form  ot  a  double  baluster. 
The  forms  of  newels  and  rails  likewise  vary  without  positive  tendency. 

Bv  analogy  with  the  authentically  dated  houses  it  is  easy  to  recognize  a  gieat 
number  of  frame  houses  in  New  England,  with  a  few  elsewhere,  as  belonging  gen- 
erally to  the  seventeenth  century,  and  to  note  regional  variations.  Messrs.  Isham 
and  Brown  have  done  this  superlatively  well  for  the  houses  of  Rhode  Island  and 
Connecticut,  and  have  pointed  out  the  main  types  of  New  England  as  a  whole 
(figure  15).  The  Connecticut  plan  {A)  is  similar  to  that  of  the  Massachusetts 
houses  we  have  been  studying,  but  characteristically  with  the  summer  running  at 
right  angles  to  the  fireplace  instead  of  parallel  to  it  (G).  This  was  the  scheme  in 
the  Plymouth  Colony  also.  The  one-room  Rhode  Island  houses  {F)  had  the 
chimney  showing  on  the  exterior,  constituting  the  "stone-end"  type,  whereas  the 
houses  of  similar  plan  in  Massachusetts  (£)  haci  an  end  wall  of  wood,  which  we 
may  suggest  was  employed  in  the  dearth  there  of  lime  mortar.  Supplementary 
gables  or  "lucome  windows"  were  found  in  Rhode  Island  but  not  in  Connecticut. 
When  rear  rooms  were  incorporated  from  the  start  (5),  the  lean-to  form  (5i)  was 
not  always  retained,  but  later,  perhaps  after  the  end  of  the  century,  houses  were 
carried  up  two  full  stories  over  their  entire  width  {Bi).  The  chimney  tended  to 
be  removed  from  its  central  position  in  favor  of  a  central  entry. 

In  Maryland  such  a  house  as  Bond  Castle  (figure  16)  suggests  interesting  ma- 
terial for  further  study.^ 

'Quoted  in  Bruce,  "Economic  History,"  vol.  2,  p.  158,  note.  Turned  balusters  in  a  bridge  at  Hartford 
are  spoken  of  as  early  as  1639.      Isham  and  Brown,  "Connecticut  Houses,"  p.  266. 

^  Isham  and  Brown,  ib. 

'  A  useful  guide  is  furnished  by  Mrs.  Annie  Leakin  Sioussat's  "Old  Manors  in  the  Colony  of  Maryland," 
1st  and  2d  series  (191 1  and  1913),  from  which  our  figure  is  reproduced  by  her  kind  permission. 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

It  will  have  been  noticed  that  the  frame  houses  preserved  show  no  feature  of 
the  academic  style  introduced  into  England  by  Inigo  Jones:  the  subordination  of 
structural  considerations  to  those  of  form  —  space  or  mass,  the  abandonment  of 
aspiring  mediaeval  lines  in  favor  of  peaceful  horizontals,  the  employment  of  the 
classic  orders  and  of  related  form  foi/all  details.     This  is  not  surprising  when  we 


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Copy>nght,  iqOO,  by  the  Preston  &  Konn<fs  Company 

Figure  15.     Types  of  New  England  houses 
From  Isham  and  Brown:  Earlv  Connecticut  Rouses 


recall  how  few  and  isolated  were  works  in  that  style  down  to  the  time  of  the  Great 
Fire.  Although  the  Banqueting  House  at  Whitehall  was  built  in  1619  to  1622,  the 
number  of  country  houses  in  the  new  manner  before  the  Restoration  may  almost 
be  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one  hand.  There  are  no  authentic  country  houses  by 
Wren;  the  great  period  of  aristocratic  house-building  lay  ahead  in  the  eighteenth 
century.     The  infiltration  of  the  academic  forms  in  the  architecture  of  the  pro- 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

/  vincial  towns  and  small  manor-houses  had  just  begun.     The  earlier  Renaissance  in 
;  England  had  passed  over  the  minor  buildings  almost  without  affecting  their  style, 
'    so  that  it  was  inevitable  that  the  early  framed  houses  of  America  should  be  sur- 
vivals fundamentally  mediaeval. 

For  a  generalization  regarding  the  course  of  development  within  the  type,  our 
study  of  the  chronological  evolution  of  single  elements  gives  us  a  wealth  of  authen- 
tic material  hitherto  unavailable.  The  only  students  who  have  seriously  discussed 
the  question,  Messrs.  Isham  and  Brown,  advanced  the  theory — chiefly  a  priori — 
of  a  gradually  "diluted"  tradition,  a  progressive  abandonment  of  imported  tradi- 


f. 

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r^" 

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■-".■s,<>v- 

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Figure  i6.     Bond  Castle  on  Chesapeake  Bay 
Courtesv  of  Mrs.  Annie  Leakin  Sioussat 


tional  features.^  The  overhang,  regarded  by  them  as  a  conspicuous  example  of 
this,  we  have  seen,  in  rigorously  dated  Massachusetts  examples,  to  give  no  justi- 
fication for  such  a  view.  Other  specific  features  of  the  houses  preserved  are  scarcely 
more  conclusive  in  their  testimony.  Wooden  chimneys,  window-panes  of  oiled 
paper,  roofs  of  thatch,  and  other  unmistakable  signs  of  early  origin  have  long  ago 
disappeared,  through  replacement,  like  the  frail  shelters  of  the  first  generation  as 
a  whole.  For  the  points  of  difference  remaining,  the  variety  of  traditions  derived 
from  the  several  districts  of  England,  even  the  variety  existing  here,  as  there,  at  a 
given  time  in  a  single  district,  is  responsible  for  more  than  are  due  to  chronological 
development.  Only  in  wealth  and  accommodations  can  we  trace  any  consistent 
tendency.    To  New  England,  where  the  existing  frame  houses  of  the  seventeenth 

^"Connecticut  Houses,"  esp.  pp.  31-32. 

34 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

century  stand,  emigration  practically  stopped  with  the  outbreak  ot  the  Civil  Wars 
in  England  in  1648,  and  the  forces  which  eventually  brought  about  a  fundamental 
change  of  style  were  not  felt  by  the  dwellings  of  humbler  material  before  the  close 
of  the  century.  It  should  not  be  surprising,  then,  that  these  houses,  ranging,  so 
far  as  we  can  prove,  only  from  1650  to  1700,  represent  a  homogeneous  style  in 
which  there  was  little  evolution. 

For  houses  where  documents  are  lacking,  dates  assigned  in  this  period  must 
have  regard  always  to  the  social  and  financial  standing  of  the  owner,  and  to  the 
relative  advancement  of  the  community.  Even  then  there  will  remain  a  wide 
margin  of  doubt.  x'\ny  dates  prior  to  1650,  obviously,  must  be  advanced  with 
extreme  caution.  Thus  in  the  case  of  the  Fairbanks  house  at  Dedham,  Massachu- 
setts, two  stories  high,  with  central  chimney,  it  is  rash  to  maintain  the  very  year 
of  Jonathan  Fairbanks's  admission  as  a  townsman,  1636-7,  as  the  date  of  the 
building  of  the  central  part  of  the  existing  house. ^ 

HOUSES  OF  MASONRY 

Not  only  during  the  seventeenth  century  but  throughout  the  Colonial  period, 
as  to  this  day,  the  vast  majority  of  houses  in  America  remained  of  wood.  The 
primar\'  reason  was,  of  course,  economic;  for  in  the  densely  forested  new  continent 
where  timber  had  to  be  felled  before  the  ground  could  be  tilled,  masonry  was  at 
a  disadvantage  in  cost  unknown  in  England  after  the  sixteenth  century.  The 
very  early  introduction  of  sawmills  and  their  wide  use  long  before  they  became 
established  in  England,'-  was  a  corollary  which  reinforced  this  condition. 

A  serious  obstacle  to  the  adoption  of  masonry  construction  in  many  regions 
was  the  difficulty  of  securing  lime  for  mortar.  As  early  as  163 1  Governor  Win- 
throp  had  "erected  a  building  of  stone  at  Mistick,"  but  "there  came  so  violent  a 
storm  of  rain  ...  (it  not  being  finished,  and  laid  with  clay  for  want  of  lime)  two 
sides  of  it  were  washed  down  to  the  ground."^  Lime  was  equally  lacking,  to  be 
sure,  in  some  regions  of  England  before  the  day  of  modern  communications,  and 
clay  mortar  was  common  there,'*  but  in  the  colonies  a  more  severe  climate  was  to 
be  withstood.     In  spite  of  the  optimistic  reports  of  John  Smith,-'^  Higginson,^  and 

'  Cf.  the  discussion  by  E.  \\'ortliington  in  the  Dedham  Historical  Registt-r,  vol.  9  (1898),  p.  4. 
-  Bishop,  "American  Manufactures,"  vol.  I,  pp.  93-115;  Weeden,  "Economic  and  Social  History  of  New 
England,"  vol.  I,  pp.  168,  172,  198,  200,  201. 

■' Winthrop,  "History  of  New  England"  (1825  ed.),  vol.  I,  p.  63. 

^Innocent,  "English  Building  Construction,"  pp.  121,  142. 

'"A  Description  of  New  England"  (1616)  in  Force's  Tracts,  vol.  2  (1838),  I,  pp.  5-6. 

'^"New  England's  Plantation,"  Young's  "Chronicles  of  Massachusetts,"  p.  244  and  note. 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Morton/  limestone  was  not  abundant  in  the  eastern  part  of  Massachusetts.  As 
late  as  1697  the  discovery  of  limestone  at  Newbury  was  thought  worth  reporting 
to  a  meeting  of  the  Governor  and  Council.-  It  was  almost  wholly  absent  in  the 
Connecticut  Colony  and  in  tidewater  A'irginia.  Only  Rhode  Island  was  well  sup- 
plied with  deposits  near  Providence,  worked  from  1662.^  Elsewhere  they  were  de- 
pendent on  importation  (especially  from  Rhode  Islandj/  or  on  the  use  oi  the  inferior 
lime  from  oyster  shells,  and  these  resources  together  were  really  inadequate.  In 
Massachusetts  Johnson  wrote  that  the  tort  on  Castle  Island  had  to  be  rebuilt  in 
1644,  "by  reason  the  country  affords  no  Lime,  but  what  is  burnt  of  Oyster-shels,"^ 
and  John  Josselyn  in  1663  alludes  to  the  absence  of  "stones  .  .  .  that  will  run  to 
lime,  ot  which  they  have  great  want."''  As  late  as  1724  shell  lime  was  in  common 
use,  and  the  inroads  made  were  such  that  it  was  "ordered  that  muscles  shall  not 
be  used  tor  making  lime  or  anything  else,  except  for  food  or  bait."'  In  the  Con- 
necticut River  towns  there  was  no  lime  before  1679,  and  its  use  long  remained 
restricted.*  In  Virginia  the  situation  cannot  have  been  greatly  unlike  that  in 
Massachusetts,  although  in  a  sanguine  description  of  1649  lime  is  spoken  of  as 
abundant,  and  Bullock  wrote  that  the  colonists  preferred  the  shell  lime  to  chalky 
lime  sometimes  met  with  in  England.^ 

Even  when  the  difficulty  of  securing  lime  was  overcome  there  remained  another 
obstacle,  later  recorded  by  Jefferson  in  his  "Notes  on  ^^irginia"  (1784),  and  doubt- 
less also  intensified  by  American  climate:  "the  unhappy  prejudice  .  .  .  that 
houses  ot  brick  and  stone  are  less  healthy  than  those  of  wood,"  due  to  damp.-"" 
It  is  reported  that  the  first  brick  house  in  Salem,  built  1707,  was  soon  pulled  down 
as  a  result  of  this  supposition,  and  in  consequence  ot  this  the  building  ot  others 
was  long  postponed."  Notwithstanding  such  conditions,  the  ciesire  for  more  per- 
manent and  dignitied  dwellings  led  the  Colonial  governments  and  especially  promi- 
nent citizens,  from  an  early  period,  to  erect  masonry  structures. 

Stone  was  totally  lacking  in  the  Mrginia  peninsula.  In  Massachusetts,  where 
rounded  glacial  field  stones  were  readily  obtainable,  experiment  with  these  in  the 

'  "New  English  Canaan,"  in  Force's  Tracts,  vol.  2,  V,  p.  57.        -  S.  Sewall,  "Diary,"  vol.  I  (1878),  p.  458. 

■'*  W.  R.  Staples,  "Annals  of  Providence"  (1843),  pp.  513,  514. 

■■  Isham  and  Brown,  "Connecticut  Houses,"  pp.  183-184. 

^"Wonder  Workine;  Providence"  (1867  reprint),  p.  194. 

''"An  Account  of  Two  Voyages  to  New  England"  (1674,  reprint  of  1865),  p.  39. 

"J.  B.  Felt,  "Annals  of  Salem,"  2d  ed.  (1845),  p.  406.  *  "Connecticut  Houses,"  pp.  182-186. 

'  "  Perfect  Description  of  Virginia"  in  Force's  Tracts,  vol.  2,  VHI,  p.  7;  \V.  Bullock,  "Virginia"  (1649),  p.  3. 

'""Writings,"  edited  by  P.  L.  Ford,  vol.  3  (1894),  p.  258.  Cf.  also  the  "Diary  of  George  Washington" 
(i860),  p.  45,  Nov.  3,  1789,  which  shows  that  this  idea  was  unfamiliar  to  Washington  until  his  visit  to  New- 
England  at  that  time. 

"J.  B.  Felt,  "Annals  of  Salem,"  2d  ed.  (1845),  pp.  414-415;  also  W.  Bentley,  "Diar\-,"  vol.  2  (1907), 
p.  268,  under  date  of  May  10,  1798. 

36 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

absence  ot  lime,  as  we  have  seen,  was  not  encouraging.  In  the  New  Haven  Colony 
and  in  Rhode  Island  lime  and  suitable  ledge  stone  were  both  available.  John 
Winthrop,  Jr.,  who  removed  from  New  London  in  1657,  alludes  to  "the  Stone- 
house,  formerly  my  dwelling  in  New  London."'  The  Whitfield  house  at  Guilford, 
of  which  the  first  documentary  mention  is  in  iSi^g,  is  of  stone.  In  Pennsylvania 
the  abundant  stone  began  to  be  used  very  soon  after  Penn's  arrival,  if  we  may 
accept  the  date  of  1689  scratched  in  a  wide  joint  of  the  older  gable  at  Wynnestay.^ 
Brick  was  far  more  widelv  used   than   stone  in   the  colonies  eenerallv.     No 


i 

Anriciit  Fiumftatious  at  Ufaiiirstown.^^a.                               ' 

I 

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Figure  17.     Foundations  of  houses  at  Jamestown,  Virginia.     Between  1662  and  1666 
From  S.  H.  Yonge:  Tlu-  Site  of  Old  James  Tozvne 

phase  ot  Colonial  building  has  received  such  thorough  investigation."'  Bricklayers 
were  included  among  the  first  settlers  at  Jamestown  in  1607,*  and  brickmaking, 
begun  certainly  by  161 1,  increased  continuously  in  Virginia.^  In  the  Massachu- 
setts Bay  Colony,  Higginson  noted  the  setting  of  a  kiln  in  1629;^  at  Plymouth  the 
first  mention  of  brick  is  stated  to  be  in  1643.'^  At  Hartford  and  New  Haven  brick 
and  brickmaking  are  spoken  of  in  the  earliest  records.-     In  Maryland  "we  find  a 

'  F.  M.  Calkins,  "History  of  New  London"  (1852),  p.  9c. 

-  H.  D.  Eberlein  and  H.  M.  Lippincott,  "The  Colonial  Homes  of  Philadelphia"  (1912),  p.  155. 

'The  pioneer  discussion,  still  unequalled  in  fulness,  is  in  Bishop,  "American  Manufactures,"  vol.  I,  ch.  9. 

^  Smith,  "Works,"  p.  94. 

^  Bruce,  "Economic  History  of  Virginia,"  vol.  2,  pp.  134-143. 

""New  England's  Plantation"  (1630),  reprinted  in  Young's  "Chronicles  of  Massachusetts,"  p.  244. 

"  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  ser.  2,  vol.  3,  p.  183. 

*  Isham  and  Brown,  "Connecticut  Houses,"  pp.  178-180. 


31 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

contract  for  making  brick  as  early  as  1653,  and  still  earlier  mention  ot  brick- 
makers."'  At  Philadelphia  a  brickmaker  was  in  the  neighborhood  before  the 
city  was  laid  out,  and  within  three  years  many  makers  were  at  work."  Only  in 
Rhode  Island  was  brickmaking  long  delayed.' 

Contradicting  the  oft-repeated  assertion  about  old  houses,  that  the  bricks  were 
brought  from  England  or  from  Holland,  is  the  universal  consensus  of  students  of 
the  records  that  importation  of  brick  in  the  English  colonies  was  negligible  where 
it  was  not  completely  unknown.  Bruce  states:  "It  would  appear  that  all  bricks 
used    in    Virginia    in    this    century    were   manufactured    there."  ^     Of  Maryland, 


Figure  18.     Wiirren  house.  Smith's  Fort,  Virginia,  as  it  stands 
to-day.      165 1  or  1652 

Browne  says:  "It  is  doubtful  whether  a  single  house  was  built  of  imported  brick.  '"■' 
A  single  case  in  New  Haven,  itself  perhaps  questionable,  is,  according  to  Isham, 
"the  only  instance  we  know  in  New  England,  except  for  the  ten  thousand  brick 
recorded  as  to  be  shipped  to  Massachusetts  Bay  in  1628.""  Several  shipments, 
though  amovmting  to  but  a  few  thousand  brick  altogether,  were  made  to  New 
Sweden.'''     Only  in  New  Netherlands  do  brick  seem  to  hav^e  been  imported  to  any 

'  W.  H.  Browne,  "Maryland"  (1899),  p.  166. 

-  r.  Westcott,  "The  Historic  Mansions  and  Buildings  of  Philadelphia"  (1877),  pp.  15-16;  and  H.  C.  Wise 
and  H.  F.  Beidleman,  "Colonial  Architecture  ...  in  Pennsylvania  .   .   ."  (1913),  pp.  16-17. 

^  Isham  and  Brown,  "Rhode  Island  Houses,"  pp.  45-46. 

■""Economic  History,"  p.  134;  likewise  L.  G.  Tyler:  "Were  Colonial  Bricks  Imported  from  England?" 
Ceyitury  Magazine,  vol.  51  (1896),  pp.  636-637,  though  he  cites  a  cargo  of  100,000  brick  from  New  England 
later,  between  1736  and  1739. 

^"  Maryland,"  p.  166.  1=  "Connecticut  Houses,"  p.  181. 

"Johnson,  "Swedish  Settlements,"  vol.  i,  pp.  170,  193,  242. 

38 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 


considerable  extent,  coming  from  Holland  as  ballast  as  early  as  1633,  and  con- 
tinuing to  be  mentioned  down  to  the  Revolution,  although  bricks  were  burned  in 
the  colony  as  early  as  1628.'  The  imported  brick  were  superior  in  quality  to  those 
of  New  Amsterdam.  In  general,  the  traditional  statements  regarding  brick  from 
England  or  from  Holland  seem  to  rest  initially  on  popular  misinterpretation  of  the 
phrases  English  and  Flemish  bond.- 

EfForts  have  been  made  to  see  whether  the  size  of  bricks  used  might  furnish 
an  index  to  the  date  ot  houses,'  but  the  data  adduced  have  been  fragmentary  and 
the  results  inconclusive.  It  is  very  questionable  whether  an  exhaustive  study 
would  be  more  fruitful,  lor  all  the  evidence  points  to  wide  variation  in  size  even 


n 

L           1 

L^^r^ 

l^' 1 

<7S!'  '"'..VW--,      \^ 

kl^HHl^^kHHH 

Figure  19.     Usher  (Royall)  house,  Medford,  Massachusetts.     Plan,  section,  and 

elevation  of  south  end 

From  the  Ahdford  Historical  Register,  vol.  3  (1900I 

Courtesy  of  John  H.  Hooper  and  Moses  Whitcher  Mann 

in  a  given  building,  and  complete  freedom  at  any  given  time  irrespective  of  the 
numerous  statutes  intended  to  secure  standardization. 

The  first  use  of  brick  was  for  chimneys,  and  houses  wholly  of  brick  were  some 
time  in  making  their  appearance,  in  spite  of  demands  for  them  on  the  part  of  the 
home  government  in  the  case  of  Virginia.  According  to  "The  New  Life  of  Vir- 
ginia," 1612,  the  houses  at  Henrico  had  "the  first  storie  all  of  bricks,"  *  although, 
as  we  have  seen,  Hamor  spoke  of  them  as  "well  framed  houses."     In  1638  Richard 

'E.  H.  Hall,  "Philipse  Manor  Hall"  (1912),  pp.  211-212. 

°  L.  G.  Tyler,  in  the  article  cited  above,  and  D.  Miliar:  "Some  Colonial  and  Georgian  Houses,"  vol.  I 
(1916),  introduction,  alike  suggest  that  the  phrases  "English  brick"  and  "Dutch  brick"  had  reference  to  the 
kind  or  size  of  brick,  Tyler  supposing  the  Dutch  brick  to  be  the  larger  of  the  two,  Millar  the  smaller,  which  is 
borne  out  by  the  article  Brick  in  the  "Builder's  Dictionary"  (1734). 

^Innocent,  "English  Building  Construction,"  pp.  152-153;  Hall,  "Philipse  Manor  Hall,"  pp.  211-213; 
M.  T.  Reynolds,  "The  Colonial  Buildings  of  Rensselaerwyck,"  Architectural  Record,  vol.  4  (1895),  p.  420,  note; 
and  Isham  and  Brown,  "Connecticut  Houses,"  p.  181. 

*  Reprinted  by  Force,  Tracts,  vol.  i,  VH,  p.  14. 

39 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Kemp,  secretary  of  the  colony,  constructed  a  residence  entirely  of  brick  in  Tames- 
town,  "the  fairest  that  ever  was  known  in  this  country  for  substance  and  impor- 
tance."'   As  to  New  England,  it  has  often  been  repeated  that  William  Coddington 


^^.     J. 


&SBi>l6i^ir&tbt^jyiiL 


"i 


>M 


p^r>m»fj4^tj  SpTyTi,  \(^ 


Figure  20.    Bacon's  Castle,  Surry  County,  Virgini.i.    Plan  and  elevation,  restored.    Before  1676 

From  measured  drawings  by  Donald  Millar 

built  the  first  brick  house  in  Boston,  prior  to  1638,  but  this  is  an  error."  Just  when 
the  first  brick  house  was  built  is  uncertain,  but  by  1654  Johnson  could  speak  san- 
guinely  of  "some  fairely  set  forth  with  Brick,  Tile,  Stone  and  Slate." 

'  Letter  of  Sir  John  Harvey,  already  cited. 

=  First  made  by  John  Callender  in  his  "Historical  Discourse  on  .  .  .  Rhode  Island"  (1739),  p.  50,  inis- 
mterpretmg  a  statement  of  Coddington  in  his  "Demonstration  of  True  Love  .  ..  ."  (1674),  which  actually 
runs:  "Before  Boston  was  named  {i.  e.,  i6?o)  ...  I  built  the  first  good  house.  .  .  ."  Quoted  in  Palfrey, 
History  of  New  England,"  vol.  i,  p.  328,  note  4. 

40 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

Existing  brick  houses  of  the  seventeenth  century  are  few  and  scattered,  as  well 
as  much  modified  and  insufficiently  investigated,  but  it  is  possible,  nevertheless, 
to  trace  their  evolution  to  some  extent.    The  following  can  be  dated  authentically: 

Begun  165 1  or  1652     Warren  house,  Smith's  Fort,  Gray's  Creek,  Surry  County, 

Virginia  (figure  18) 
Before  1676     Bacon's  Castle,  Surry  County,  Virginia  (figures  20,  21) 


Figure  21.     Bacon's  Castle 
From  an  old  woodcut  in  Frank  Leslie's  Illustrated  Jl'eekly 

Between  1677  and  1680     Peter  Tufts  ("Cradock")  house,  Medford,  Massa- 
chusetts (figure  25) 
1682  to  1683     William  Penn  ("Letitia")  house,  Philadelphia  (figure  27) 
Before  1697     Usher  house  (nucleus  of  Royall  house),  Medford,  Massachusetts 
(figure  19) 

To  these  may  be  added  several  nt>w  destroyed,  yet  known  through  old  views,  pho- 
tographs, or  excavation: 

Between  1662  and  1666     "Country  House"  and  Philip  Ludwell  houses,  James- 
town (figure  17) 

41 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

1676  to  1679     Peter  Sergeant  house  ("Province  House"),  Boston  (figure  24) 
Between  1681  and  1691     John  Foster  (Hutchinson)  house,  Boston,  in  its  original 

form 
169a     Fairfield  (Carter's  Creek),  Gloucester  County,  Mrginia  (figure  22) 
Before  1700     "The  Slate  House,"  Philadelphia  (figure  23) 

The  choice  of  bond  for  the  brickwork  has  been  thought  to  be  a  matter  of 
chronological  evolution,  and  the  idea  has  been   advanced  that  English  bond — 


Figure  22.     Fairfield  (Carter's  Creek),  Gloucester  County,  Virginia 
Courtesy  of  R.  A.  Lancaster 

courses  of  headers  alternating  with  courses  of  stretchers — was  the  one  employed 
in  Virginia  before  1710;  and  that  Flemish  bond — a  header  and  a  stretcher  alternat- 
ing in  each  course — became  popular  after  that  date.'  In  England  at  the  time, 
however,  these  two  boncis  were  both  used  by  Inigo  Jones,  and  "their  use  in  the 
seventeenth  century  seems  to  have  depended  on  the  use  of  special  bricks  for  fac- 
ing"-— the  Flemish  bond  being  preferred  in  this  case  because  of  its  greater  propor- 
tion of  stretchers.     In  Jamestown  English  bond  is  found  in  the  tower  of  the  church, 

'  JVilliam  and  Mary  CoUrf,e  Quarterly,  vol.  15  (1907),  p.  212. 
^Innocent,  "English  Building  Construction,"  p.  151. 

42 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 


built  1 639-1 647,  and  in  the  walls  ot  the  houses  excavated  there,  1 662-1 666;  but  in 
the  Warren  house  at  Smith's  Fort,  built  in  1651  or  1652,  Flemish  bond  is  used,  and 
it  appears  in  the  chimney  at  Fairfield,  1692.  In  New  England  the  Usher-Royall 
house,  throughout  its  brick  ends,  has  three  courses  of  stretchers  followed  by  one 
of  headers.  In  Philadelphia  Flemish  bond  was  used  from  the  establishment  of  the 
city,  at  least  in  the  best  houses  such  as  the  Penn  house  and  the  "Slate  House." 
In  form,  although  some  of  the  simpler  brick  houses  did  not  differ  essentially 
trom  the  better  ones  of  wood,  other  types  appeared  as  pretensions  increased.    As 


Figure  23.     "The  Slate  House,"  Philadelphia 

From  the  original  drawing  for  Watson's  Annals  of  Philadelphia,  1830 

Courtesy  of  the  Library  Company  of  Philadelphia 

in  wooden  houses,  an  elongated  rectangular  mass  with  a  steep  gable  roof  was  usual. 
It  was  not  uncommon  to  have  but  two  rooms  on  a  floor,  as  in  the  houses  at  James- 
town (figure  17),  the  Warren  house  (figure  i8),  and,  originally,  the  Usher-Royall 
house  (figure  19).  Of  these  the  Warren  house  had  one  full  story,  the  Usher  house 
two.  While  two-story  houses  presumably  grew  more  numerous  as  time  went  on 
and  means  increased,  others  of  a  single  story  continued  to  be  built.  A  basement 
partly  above  ground  appears  in  the  Warren  and  Sergeant  houses  and  in  Bacon's 
Castle. 

43 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

An  elaboration  ot  such  a  plan  as  that  of  the  Usher  house  appears  in  Bacon's 
Castle,  surely  before  1676  (figures  20,  21).  There  is  a  projecting  entrance  with  a 
porch  chamber,  and  a  corresponding  projection  on  the  rear  for  the  stairs,  making 
a  cruciform  mass. 

All  these  houses  in  their  general  scheme  represent  rather  developments  of  the 
English  cottage  than  derivatives  of  the  great  mansions.  There  were,  however,  two 
instances  of  a  more  pretentious  scheme,  the  E  or  H  plan  common  in  the  great 
houses  of  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean  England,  and  not  unusual  there  in  the  better 
farmhouses.^  The  American  examples  are  Fairfield,  1692  (figure  22),  and  the 
"Slate  House"  (figure  23),  just  before  1700 — both  alreaciy  showing  in  certain 
other  respects  characteristics  of  the  age  to  follow. 

Toward  1680  there  appeared  for  the  first  time  certain  brick  houses  built  from 
the  start  with  a  depth  ot  two  rooms  in  each  story:  the  Sergeant  house  (figure  24), 
the  Tutts  house  (figure  25),  and  the  Penn  house  (figure  27),  all  built  within  a  period 
ot  five  or  six  years.  The  Penn  house  is  even  deeper  than  it  is  wide.  In  it  the  door 
opens  directly  into  the  chief  apartment,  which  must  be  traversed  to  reach  the  rear 
rooms;  but  in  the  other  two  a  central  hallway  for  the  first  time  gives  privacy  of 
access.  This  doubling  of  rooms  and  introduction  of  passages  which  marked  the 
post-Renaissance  dwellings  of  the  continent  and  of  England  in  the  seventeenth 
century,  was,  in  America  also,  a  symptom  ot  the  onset  ot  a  new  style. 

The  roots  in  houses  of  masonry  were  sometimes  ot  more  permanent  materials 
than  those  ot  wooden  houses.  We  have  seen  that  Johnson  speaks  ot  slate  at  Bos- 
ton in  1654.  In  British  settlements  in  East  Jersey,  according  to  a  document  of 
1684,  "there  are  some  houses  covered  after  the  Dutch  manner,  with  panticles."- 
By  the  houses  of  1662  to  1666  at  Jamestown  were  tound  fragments  of  slate  and 
tile,''  and  in  the  storm  of  1684,  it  is  said,  a  large  portion  of  the  damage  inflicted 
was  in  the  destruction  of  the  tile  roofs  by  hail.^  The  "Account  ot  Pennsylvania," 
published  by  Gabriel  Thomas  in  1698,  speaks  of  "tile-stone,  with  which  .  .  . 
Governor  Penn  covered  his  great  anci  stately  pile,  which  he  called  Pennsbury 
House." ^  In  Philadelphia  the  "Slate  House"  took  its  name  from  its  unusual 
roofing  material. 

The  roof  torm  characteristic  of  the  time  as  a  whole — the  steep  mediaeval  gable 
— appears  in  the  Warren  house,  in  Bacon's  Castle,  and  in  the  Usher  (Royall)  house, 

'  Gervase  Markham,   "The  English  Husbandman"   (1613,  often   reprinted),  fioures  and  recommends  this 
plan,  pp.  23  and  24. 

-  S.  Smith,  "Histor}-  of  New  Jersey"  (1765),  p.  184.  "  Yonge,  "James  Towne,"  p.  95. 

■*  Bruce,  "Economic  History  of  Virginia,"  vol.  2,  p.  159. 

'Quoted  in  Westcott,  "Historic  Mansions  of  Philadelphia,"  p.  38. 

44 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

spanning  at  least  from  1650  to  1680.  In  Bacon's  Castle,  unique  in  America,  the 
gables  have  the  steps  and  cuspings  of  Jacobean  England.'  In  several  of  the 
houses,  however,  forms  prophetic  of  a  coming  day  make  their  first  appearance. 
Thus,  in  the  Tufts  house  the  main  slopes  of  fifty-one  degrees  are  sharply  truncated 
at  the  top — producing  our  earliest  example  of  the  so-called  "gambrel"  or  curb 
roof  (figure  26).  Much  time  has  been  wasted  in  seeking  the  origin  of  the  gambrel 
roof  of  the  English  colonies  elsewhere,  for  instance  among  the  Dutch  about  New 


Figure  24.     The  Province  House.      Boston.      1676  to  1679 
From  S.  A.  Drake:  Old  Landmarks  of  Boston  (1873) 

York.=  This  example  should  demonstrate,  to  all  who  know  the  history  of  Euro- 
pean architecture,  that  the  form  originated  in  the  desire  to  reduce  the  height  o\ 
the  mediaeval  roof,  especially  over  buildings  of  a  double  file  of  rooms.  Although 
known,  when  used  on  all  four  slopes  with  a  level  cornice,  by  the  name  of  the 
French  architect,  Mansart,  it  was  by  no  means  confined  to  France,  many  exam- 
ples appearing  in  England  in  the  later  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries.  The 
use  of  the  curb  roof  while  retaining  the  gable  was  a  compromise,  which  we  see  in 
an  early  English  example  over  the  great  hall  at  Hampton  Court,  and  which  re- 

•  A  late  English  example,  dated  1678,  is  in  a  building  at  Carleton  St.  Peters,  Norfolk.   B.  Oliver,  "Old  Houses 
in  East  Anglia,"  pi.  73.     Medway  in  South  Carolina,  Landgrave  Smith's  house,  has  a  stepped  gable,  rebuilt. 
■An  early  discussion  in  the  Aimrican  Jrchitc-ct,  vol.  5  (1879),  p.  153. 

45 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

mained  frequent  in  the  colonies  as  nowhere  else.  The  forms  most  significant  ot  the 
future  were  the  hip-roof  and  the  pediment-gable.  Horizontal  members  transform- 
ing the  gable,  necessarily  flatter,  into  a  rudimentary  pediment,  appeared  in  the 
Sergeant  and  Penn  houses.  The  hip-roof  is  used  in  both  the  houses  of  E  plan, 
and  in  both  is  of  lower  slope — at  Fairfield  with  the  eaves  of  the  main  house  higher 
than  those  of  the  wings;  at  the  "Slate  House"  with  the  eaves  everywhere  on  a 
level.     Both,  like  the  Sergeant  house,  also  show,  for  the  first  time  in  America, 


Figure  25.     Peter  Tufts  house,  Medford,  Massachusetts.     Between  1677  and  1680 
Courtesy  of  the  Society  for  the  Preservation  of  New  England  Antiquities 


enrichment  by  blocks  or  modillions.  Thus,  as  the  century  draws  to  a  close,  the 
staccato  of  the  mediaeval  gable  gives  way  gradually  to  the  legato  of  the  classic 
cornice. 

In  the  Sergeant  and  Penn  houses  the  "lucome  windows"  over  the  plane  of  the 
wall  gave  way  to  dormers  of  the  type  first  used  in  England  in  such  academic  houses 
as  Coleshill,  and  defined  in  1703  as  "a  window  made  in  the  Roof  of  a  House,  it 
standing  upon  the  Rafters."' 

The  chimney  in  brick  houses  differed  significantly  in  its  position  from  that  of 

'T.  Neve,  "City  and  Countrey  Purchaser  and  Builder's  Dictionary"  (1703). 

46 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

the  typical  wooden  house.  In  some  of  the  houses  at  Jamestown  there  was  a  cen- 
tral chimney,  but  the  same  motives  of  economy  which  in  wooden  houses  of  two- 
room  plan  with  a  masonry  chimney  led  to  its  placing  in  the  centre,  in  houses  of 
masonry  made  chimneys  in  the  end  wall  preferred.  Thus  it  was  characteristic  of 
the  brick  house  with  gables,  whether  North  or  South,  to  have  them  terminate  in 
tall  chimney-stacks.  This  was  the  case  in  the  Warren  house,  Bacon's  Castle,  the 
Tufts  and  Usher  houses.  The  chimney  itselt  in  two  houses  shows  the  separate 
clustered  flues  of  Elizabethan  England — Bacon's  Castle  and  Fairfield — the  latter 


f 

^^^ 

^ 

-rrX^^'T3=-  -=^  -. 

—J 

"""^ 

// 

y//^ 

J: 

^ 

w 

/lW 

u 

^  y  -     u  ■ 

LI 

U- 

,-j*^r^-ti      1 

^=\ 

i 

Figure  26.     Root  framing  of  the  Tufts  house 
From  Carpentry  and  Building,  vol.  6  (1884) 


as  late  as  1692,  and  in  some  ways  more  advanced  in  style.  In  the  "Slate  House" 
the  chimneys  were  L-shaped.  Aside  from  these  the  chimneys  in  the  dated  brick 
houses  are  merely  rectangular,  and  do  not  show  features  ot  special  note.  Some  have 
perhaps  been  rebuilt,  but  in  others  the  absence  of  such  treatment  as  is  common  in 
the  chimneys  ot  wooden  houses  may  be  due  to  the  approach  of  the  style  to  come. 
The  doorways  ot  the  brick  houses  in  general  do  not  show  much  elaboration. 
Those  of  Bacon's  Castle  and  of  the  Tufts  house  have  segmental  arched  heads, 
whereas  that  of  the  Penn  house,  somewhat  later,  has  a  flat  arch.  The  Warren  house, 
Carter's  Creek,  and  the  "Slate  House"  had  light  gabled  porches,  but  it  is  impos- 
sible to  tell  whether  they  date  from  the  time  of  the  original  construction.  In  the 
Peter  Sergeant  house  there  appeared  for  the  first  time  a  small  portico  with  columns 

47 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

and  entablature — a  feature  first  used  in  England  at  Thorpe  Hall,  during  the  Com- 
monwealth— which  seems  always  to  have  belonged  to  the  house,  since  it  was  pre- 
cisely in  its  iron  balcony  rail  that  occurred  the  first  owner's  initials  and  the  date  1679. 


Figure  27.     William  Penn  ("Letitia")  house,  on  its  original  site.      1682-1683 
From  an  old  photograph  in  the  possession  of  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania 


The  windows  of  many  of  the  brick  houses  have  been  enlarged,  and  there  is  not 
such  good  evidence  for  their  size  and  proportion  as  that  furnished  by  the  mor- 
tises of  a  wooden  house.     In  the  Tufts  house  there  were  apparently  banks  of  case- 

48 


THE    SEVENTEENTH    CENTURY 

ments  beneath  a  segmental  relieving  arch.  At  Bacon's  Castle  the  chief  openings, 
also  segmental  in  the  lower  story,  were  larger,  and  Mr.  Millar  is  doubtless  correct 
in  restoring  them  with  a  transom — a  feature  which  appears  in  the  old  view  of  the 
Bradstreet  house  in  Salem.  The  large  rectangular  openings  must  also  have  made 
transoms  necessary  with  the  original  casement  sash  mentioned  in  the  early  descrip- 
tion of  the  "Slate  House."     As  this  finest  house  in  Philadelphia,  recommended  by 


Figure  28.     Interior  of  Penn  house 
Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 

Logan  for  the  proprietor's  residence,  would  scarcely  have  fallen  behind  the  more 
modest  residence  built  by  Penn  fifteen  years  earlier,  we  may  reasonably  assume 
that  this  also  originally  had  transomed  casements  beneath  its  broad  flat  arches. 
It  is  extremely  doubtful  if  double-hung  sash  windows  were  used  in  any  Colonial 
house  during  the  seventeenth  century. 

Most  ot  the  windows  lack  any  enframement,  but  in  Bacon's  Castle  those  ot  the 
upper  story  have  one  of  brick,  suggestive  of  an  architrave  with  ears — the  sole 

49 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

feature  of  the  house  which  suggests  classic  influence,  and  the  only  example  of  this 
element  in  houses  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

The  interior  treatment  of  the  brick  houses  generally  does  not  show  character- 
istic differences  of  style  from  that  of  wooden  houses.  Plastered  wall  surfaces  seem 
to  have  been  the  rule  during  the  seventeenth  century;  the  panelling  found,  for 
instance,  in  the  Warren  house  and  in  Bacon's  Castle  being  of  a  style  to  indicate 
later  insertion.  A  unique  anticipation  of  the  coming  style  appears  in  the  chimney- 
piece  of  the  great  room  of  the  William  Penn  house,  which  is  framed  by  an  archi- 
trave of  heavy  bolection  moulding,  with  frieze  and  cornice  (figure  28). 

We  thus  find,  as  might  well  be  expected,  that  the  houses  of  brick,  the  most 
pretentious  of  early  Colonial  dwellings,  show  advances  in  the  same  direction  in 
which  architectural  style  was  progressing  in  England.  Few  of  them  are  without 
some  minor  phrase  of  the  academic  language  of  form:  a  window  architrave  in  one 
case,  a  level  cornice  with  modillions  in  others,  a  hip-roof,  or  a  gambrel.  Two  at 
least,  the  Sergeant  and  Penn  houses,  by  the  strength  of  the  new  spirit  in  arrange- 
ment, mass,  and  detail  may  justly  be  regarded  as  works  of  transition. 

The  early  appearance  of  such  transitional  features  in  the  finest  brick  houses, 
coupled  with  the  survival  of  mediaeval  features  in  minor  houses  of  a  later  day, 
makes  it  necessary  to  leave  a  wide  margin  of  latitude  in  assigning  dates  to  early 
brick  houses  for  which  no  documents  are  preserved.  Dates  before  1650  must 
obviously  be  put  forward'  with  special  caution.  So,  for  instance,  it  is  very  doubt- 
ful if  the  Thoroughgood  house  in  Princess  Anne  County,  Virginia,  was  built  by 
Adam  Thoroughgood,  who  died  in  1640,  only  two  years  after  the  building  of  the 
first  brick  house  in  Jamestown. 

In.  many  instances  the  mediaeval  methods  of  the  seventeenth  century  were  con- 
tinued long  after  1700,  as  indeed  they  have  been  perpetuated  to  this  day  in  ob- 
scure corners  of  Europe.  The  log  house  became  the  typical  pioneer  dwelling.  The 
wooden  chimney  and  the  leaded  casement,  as  we  have  seen,  long  persisted  in  coun- 
try districts,  as  did  the  lean-to  and  the  overhang.  The  Williams  house  in  Deerfield, 
as  originally  rebuilt  in  1707,  was  untouched  by  any  breath  of  innovation.  Mr. 
Isham  has  suggested  that  in  Connecticut  the  fundamentally  mediaeval  methods  of 
framing,  and  even  a  vestige  of  the  overhanging  stories,  were  retained  until  1730 
or  even  1750.  The  most  notable  instances  of  such  survivals  occur  in  the  buildings 
of  the  German  sectarians  of  Pennsylvania,  especially  the  monastic  buildings  at 
Ephrata  (figure  29).  The  "Saal"  or  Prayer  House  here  was  completed  in  1741; 
"Bethania,"  the  Brother  Hall,  in  1746.^    The  construction  is  of  hewn  beams,  put 

'  J.  F.  Sachse,  "The  German  Sectarians  of  Pennsylvania,"  vol.  i  (1889),  passim. 

50 


}-rom  a  pHotogtiipii  ny  J.ini'-  L.  Liniiurt 


Figure  29.      Porch  of  the  Sister  House,  Ephrata,  Pennsylvania 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

together  without  iron  for  ritual  reasons,  and  filled  with  stones  and  clay,  beneath 
the  boarding  or  stucco.  The  steep  roofs  and  small  windows,  the  illuminated  texts 
of  the  interior,  the  picturesque  porches,  have  an  old-world  air  which  is  unique  on 
this  side  of  the  ocean. 

Thus,  in  the  midst  of  the  eighteenth  century,  faded  the  last  afterglow  of  the 
art  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  America. 


52 


THE   EIGHTEENTH   CENTURY 

WITH  the  opening  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  academic  spirit  and 
the  academic  architectural  forms,  which  had  hitherto  just  begun 
to  appear  here  in  a  few  transitional  houses,  won  the  upper  hand  in 
Colonial  architecture  at  large,  as  in  the  architecture  of  England. 
The  academic  style  involved  much  more  than  merely  a  general  symmetry  and 
an  application  of  the  classic  orders,  already  introduced  into  the  great  houses  of 
England  by  the  Renaissance.  It  involved  a  transference  ot  the  emphasis  from 
functional  considerations  to  those  of  pure  form.  Tall  gables  and  chimneys,  bay 
windows  and  mullioned  casements,  exposed  beams  and  other  functional  elements 
with  which  the  northern  Renaissance,  following  mediaeval  traditions,  had  built 
up  such  picturesque  arrangements,  gave  way  to  more  abstract  compositions  of 
space,  mass,  and  surface. 

The  tinge  which  this  universal  style  of  the  post-Renaissance  period  took  on  in 
the  colonies  was  primarily  dependent  on  its  character  in  England.  As  received 
from  Jones,  its  great  English  protagonist,  this  is  well  suggested  in  his  own  de- 
mand that  architecture  should  be  "solid,  proportionable  according  to  rule,  mascu- 
line and  unaffected."  He  followed  Palladio  in  a  puristic  treatment  of  the  orders 
and  openings,  with  less  dissolution  of  the  individual  parts  into  the  general  unity. 
The  simplest  cubical  mass  dominated  by  a  "pavilion"  or  a  loggia;  superposed 
orders  or,  more  characteristically,  a  single  order,  either  above  a  basement  or  em- 
bracing the  whole  height  of  the  building;  a  foil  of  broad  masonry  surfaces,  either 
plain  or  grooved,  with  scarcely  a  leaf  ot  carved  ornament — such  were  the  char- 
acteristic elements  of  his  monumental  style,  well  suited  for  the  dwellings  of  the 
monarch  or  of  a  great  aristocracy. 

In  the  hands  of  Wren  the  style  became  less  austere  and  more  intimate.  Some- 
thing of  baroque  surprise  and  movement  appeared.  Baroque  elements,  like  the 
broken  and  scroll  pediments,  were  admitted,  consoles  were  more  freely  used,  rus- 
ticated quoins  penetrated  the  enframements,  more  exuberant  carving  enriched  the 
interiors.     Under  Dutch  influence  brick  became  the  favored  material.     In  the  ser- 

53 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

vice  of  the  Universities,  the  London  parishes,  and  the  City  Companies,  the  new 
style  was  adapted  to  a  wider  domestic  use,  for  which  the  rebuilding  of  London 
after  the  Great  Fire  gave  the  first  occasion. 

A  fresh  initiative  of  international  importance  was  taken  in  the  years  after  1715 
by  Lord  Burlington,  who,  championing  the  style  of  Palladio  and  of  Jones,  outdid 
them  in  purism  and  in  classical  ardor.    Already,  just  before  this,  William  Benson 


^m= 


1^      ^'      t. 
^  a  N  11  'c   u  Nil 


1' 


%^ 


^S 


Front  in  all  90. 


A  The  Paflagc  into  the  Hall. 

B  The  Hall. 

C  The  Pairage  into  the  Garden. 

D  and  E  Step!  coiringinto  the  Pallors  and 

Kitchio. 
F  The  great  Parlor. 
C  The  little  Parlor. 


H   The  great   pair  of  Stairs   leading  up  to   the 

Dining-room  over  the  Hall. 
I  The  Kitchin. 

K  A  place foraBrew-houre,Wa(h-honre,orthelike. 
L  The  back-pair  of  Stairs. 
M  A  Paftery,  or  Larder. 
N  The  Chtmneys. 


fW»»tt»ti 


I4«  &  147-1 


Figure  30.     "A  Platform  for  .i  Mansion-house" 
From  Stephen  Priniatt:  City  and  Country  Purchaser  and  Builder  (1667) 

had  built  perhaps  the  first  house  in  England  with  a  great  projecting  portico:  Wil- 
bury  House  in  Wiltshire,'  soon  followed  by  many  others. 

Provincial  England  first  saw  academic  forms  in  a  few  houses  ascribed  to  Jones 
and  Webb,  built  about  i6t;o,  the  most  notable  being  Coleshill  and  Thorpe  Hall, 
characterized  by  simple  rectangular  masses  with  double  files  of  rooms,  level  cor- 
nice lines,  hip-roofs,  and  uniform  ranges  of  classic  windows.  Wide  diffusion  of  the 
style  among  minor  buildings  outside  of  London  came  only  with  the  reigns  of  Queen 
Anne  (1702-1714)  and  the  Georges,-  as  the  name  "Georgian"  applied  to  this  ver- 
nacular work  suggests.  In  such  buildings  the  traits  significant  of  style  are  less 
accentuated:  general  regularity,  the  use  of  the  hip-roof  with  level  eaves  and  mo- 

'  Vol.  I  of  the  "  Vitruvius  Britannicus,"  in  which  it  is  figured  on  pis.  51  and  52,  appeared  in  1717.  Benson 
seems  to  have  settled  in  Wiltshire  about  1712. 

''J.  A.  Gotch,  "The  English  House  from  Charles  I  to  George  IV"  (1918),  pp.  99  fF.;  H.  Field  and  M.  Bun- 
ney,  "English  Domestic  Architecture  of  the  XVII  and  XVIII  Centuries"  (1905),  pp.  2,  9-10. 


54 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 


rhUre   j 


Tq — wi'jwii 


dillion  cornice,  of  sash  windows  with  wooden  bars,  ot  a  framed  pedimented  door- 
way, of  quoins  or  some  simple  pilaster  treatment. 

The  means  of  transmission  to  the  colonies  of  the  new  gospel,  in  its  successive 
English  versions,  were  several.  In  the  younger  settlements,  like  Pennsylvania  or, 
later,  Georgia,  it  may  have  been  brought  partly  by  immigration;  laymen  and  crafts- 
men alike  having  finally  absorbed  the  new 
fashions  and  traditions  at  home.  In  such 
colonies  as  Virginia  and  New  England, 
where  there  was  no  special  influx  of  fresh 
colonists  during  the  eighteenth  century, 
there  were  still  instances  of  new  arrivals 
of  importance.  Thus  among  the  constant 
succession  ot  royal  governors  there  were 
men  of  cultivation  who  demanded  dwell- 
ings ot  more  modern  style,  and  set  a  con- 
spicuous example.  Sir  Francis  Bernard 
and  a  few  other  new-comers,  such  as  John 
Smibert  and  Peter  Harrison,  were  gifted 
amateurs,  who  exercised  their  talents 
chiefly  on  public  works.  Cases  are  re- 
corded where  a  master  workman  was 
brought  specially  trom  England  tor  a  giv^en 
house,  as  David  Mini  tree  was  brought  in 
175 1  to  take  charge  ot  the  erection  ot  Car- 
ter's Grove  in  ^'irginia,*  or  John  Hawks 
in  1765  for  the  building  of  Governor 
Tryon's  "Palace,"-  but  these  were  very 

exceptional.  Among  professional  architects  of  reputation,  then  few  enough  even 
in  England,  only  one  is  known  to  have  been  in  America:  John  James,  "  ot  Green- 
wich," who  was  in  Boston  in  the  late  seventeen  thirties.  Despite  traditional 
statements  that  a  given  house  was  designed  by  some  famous  English  architect,  or 
was  copied  from  some  English  building,  no  authentic  instance  is  known  of  a  house 
in  the  Colonial  period  for  which  the  designs  were  brought  specially  trom  England. 

In  reality  the  adoption  of  the  new  style  came  about  in  America  in  the  same 
way  in  which  it  did,  as  any  general  or  wide-spread  matter,  in  England:  through  the 


ij+tte' 


""VAWiri.-//  ' 


h: 

:5 

31: 


ii 


r 


t.  II  t 


d 


Figure  31.     Elevation  of  a  town  house 
From  Joseph  Moxon:  Mt-chanick  Exercises  (1700) 


'  R.  A.  Lancaster,  "Historic  Virginia  Homes"  (191 5),  p.  54. 

-  Tryon  to  the  Earl  of  Shelburne,  January  31,  1767,  in  Colonial  Records  of  North  Carolina,  \o\.  7  (1890),  p.  431. 


55 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

making  of  its  forms  universally  accessible  to  intelligent  workmen,  or  even  laymen, 
by  means  of  books.  It  has  been  little  appreciated  that  this  was  scarcely  accom- 
plished in  England  before  1700,  and  that  its  successful  issue,  in  creating  an  ex- 
tremely high  standard  of  formal  knowledge  among  all  builders,  constitutes  one  ot 
the  great  artistic  accomplishments  of  the  eighteenth  century.   The  books  in  foreign 


:''■■   '^fi   fi( 


I  i'-i  *^<<r  /^      //  'v'  ^ 


■^     /.  f^^  /3 '■  y;-.-,-  -      — 


/ 


Figure  32.     Plan  for  the  Challoner  house,  Newport.     Benjamin  Wyatt,  1735 
From  the  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of  George  C.  Mason 

languages  which  had  long  been  published  were  available  and  useful  only  to  a  small 
number;  works  on  architecture  in  England  were  rare  prior  to  the  Restoration.  Of 
those  which  then  began  to  pour  forth,  few  issized  before  1700  provided  suitable 
material  for  the  adoption  of  the  classic  style  in  ordinary  domestic  buildings.  Most 
of  them  showed  only  the  forms  of  the  five  orders,  suitable  ornaments  for  a  noble- 
man's seat  like  Hatfield  but  not  the  things  most  needed  for  an  ordinary  dwelling. 
Sir  Henry  Wotton's  suggestive  work,  "The  Elements  of  Architecture,"  pub- 
lished in  1624,  is  without  illustrations,  and  in  so  far  as  it  does  not  deal  with  practi- 

56 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

cal  matters  common  to  all  styles,  consists  of  rather  erudite  discussion  of  Vitruvian 
doctrine.  Sir  Balthazar  Gerbier's  two  books  (1662  and  1663)  are  likewise  com- 
posed mainly  of  text,  which  urges  the  employment  of  an  architect,  then  a  luxury 
possible  only  for  the  great. 

Only  the  orders  were  shown  in  John  Shute's  "First  and  Chiefe  Groundes  of 
Architecture"  (1563),  the  earliest  English  book  on  academic  architecture,^  and  in 
Evelyn's  translation  of  Freart  de  Chambray's  "Parallele"  (1664).'-     Little  more 


From  a  photograph  by  Frank  Conans 

Figure  33.     Cliveden,  Germantown,  Pennsylvania.     After  1763 


was  included  in  the  translations  of  Bluom's  "Quinque  columnarum  .  .  ."  (1600 
and  1608),^  of  Vignola  (1665),*  and  of  Mauclerc  (1676).  The  folio  translations  of 
Lomazzo  (1598)  and  of  Serlio  (161 1)  contained,  in  addition,  drawings  of  ancient 
buildings,  ^'enetian  palace  fronts,  and  some  ancient  doorways,  and  that  of  Fran- 
cini's  "Livre  d'Architecture"  (1669)  had  "gates  and  arches  triumphant."  Even 
the  translation  (1670)  of  Le  Muet's  "Maniere  de  bien  bastir  pour  touttes  sortes 
de  personnes,"  which  had  first  furnished  models  for  houses  in  France,  had  little 

'New  editions  1579,  1584.  -New  editions  1680,  1723,  1733.  ^  The  latter  reissued  in  1660. 

■•Third  edition  1673,  fourth  1694,  fifth  1702,  others  1703,  1729.    Another  translation,  in  foho,  1666. 

57 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

that  was  relevant  in  England.  All  these  books  were  tar  less  useful  to  house  build- 
ers than  the  pocket  versions  of  Palladio's  Book  I  (1663)  and  of  Scamozzi  (1669).' 
One  had  an  appendix  from  Le  Muet — here  was  its  great  appeal — "touching  Doors 
and  Windows,"  with  a  chimneypiece,  showing  a  broken  scroll  pediment;  the  other, 
"two  manteltrees"  and  "The  Ornament  for  a  Corinthian  Doore  or  Window."  An 
idea  of  the  special  demand  for  the  Palladio  may  be  gathered  from  its  having 
flashed  through  twelve  editions  between  1663  and  1733. 

Designs  for  ordinary  dwellings  were  first  shown  in  Stephen  Primatt's  "City 
and  Country  Purchaser  and  Builder"  (1667),  and  Joseph  Moxon's  "Mechanick  Ex- 
ercises." Primatt  shows  only  plans,  the  majority  of  them  not  dissimilar  to  the 
ordinary  two-room  plan  of  the  seventeenth  century  in  America — one  an  H  plan 
(figure  30).  Moxon,  whose  primary  purpose  was  instruction  in  handicraft,  shows 
in  "The  Art  of  House  Carpentry"  (1694),  a  city  house  front  of  frame,  with  banks 
of  mullioned  casements  and  a  gable  to  the  street;  but  in  "The  Art  of  Bricklayers- 
Work"  (1700),  a  vernacular  classic  front  with  large  sash  windows,  a  hip-roof,  and 
cove  cornice  (figure  31).    Another  plate  shows  a  cornice  of  full  classic  profile. 

Really  academic  suggestions  for  contemporary  dwellings  were  not  available  in 
print  until  1715,  when,  under  the  patronage  of  Lord  Burlington,  the  great  apostle 
of  Palladianism,  a  complete  edition  of  Palladio  in  two  folio  volumes  was  issued  by 
Giacomo  Leoni.^  Further  versions  were  made  by  Isaac  Ware  (1738)  and  others. 
The  designs  of  Inigo  Jones,  likewise  championed  by  Burlington,  were  published 
with  his  support  in  1727  under  the  editorship  of  William  Kent,  who  included  also 
some  of  the  designs  of  his  patron.  Additional  designs  ascribed  to  Jones  were  pub- 
lished by  Ware  (1735)  and  Vardy  (1744).  Colin  Campbell,  another  protege  of 
Burlington,  began  in  17 17  the  issue  of  a  great  corpus  of  English  academic  build- 
ings, the  "Vitruvius  Britannicus,"  not  hesitating  to  exploit  designs  of  his  own. 
From  this  it  was  but  a  step  to  the  frank  publication — like  Palladio's — of  one's  own 
designs,  executed  and  unexecuted,  as  was  sumptuously  done  by  James  Gibbs  in 
1728.  Gibbs  explicitly  suggested  in  his  Introduction  that  his  book  "would  be  of 
assistance  to  such  Gentlemen  as  might  be  concerned  in  building,  especially  in 
remote  parts  of  the  Country,  where  little  assistance  in  design  is  to  be  secured," 
and  in  this  his  hopes  were  amply  justified,  as  we  shall  see.  Ware's  "Complete 
Body  of  Architecture"  (1756)  was  filled  with  model  designs  showing  the  applica- 
tion of  academic  elements. 

Such  great  folios  of  magnificent  country-seats,  however,  were  surpassed  many 

'Third  edition  1676,  fourth  1700,  seventh  1774.    Another  translation  was  pubhshed  in  foho  in  1676. 
'Twice  reissued,  in  1721  and  1742. 

58 


Figure  34.     Hancock  house,  Boston.      1737  to  I2J^ 
Gaurtesy  of  the  Society  for  the  Preservation  of  New  England  Antiquities 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

fold  in  accessibility  and  relevance  by  the  less  ambitious  publications  of  men  de- 
voting themselves  specifically  to  supplying  builders  and  owners  with  suggestive 
designs  and  details  of  smaller  houses.  Notable  among  them  were  the  works  of 
Robert  Morris  (from  1728),  Abraham  Swan  (from  1745),  and  especially  William 
Halfpenny  (from  1724),  Batty  Langley  (from  1729),  and  William  Pain  (from  1758), 
each  responsible  for  a  small  shelf-full  of  books,  of  which  Halfpenny's  "Modern 
Builder's  Assistant"  (1747)  was  perhaps  the  first  to  give  general  designs.  A  unique 
collection  of  these  works,  unrivalled  in  richness  even  in  England,  is  deposited  in 
the  Metropolitan  Museum  as  a  loan  by  Ogden  Codman.  Such  books,  not  except- 
ing those  of  the  same  author  at  different  periods,  differ  markedly  among  them- 
selves in  the  precise  phase  of  style  illustrated,  following,  with  their  dates,  the  evo- 
lution which  brought  the  ornament  of  the  rococo  to  England,  and  then  replaced 
it  by  the  ever-cooling  chasteness  of  pseudo-classic  decoration.  An  analogous  evo- 
lution took  place  in  the  plans,  where  the  initial  rectangularity  was  diversified  by 
octagonal  and  oval  rooms. 

Copies  of  all  these  works  found  their  way  to  America,  often  within  a  very  few 
years  of  their  issue,  and  nowhere  were  they  more  needed  or  more  avidly  welcomed. 
We  have  elsewhere,'  by  the  aid  of  sales  catalogues,  library  catalogues,  and  inven- 
tories of  the  time,  brought  out  the  surprising  numbers,  both  of  monumental  folios  and 
of  pocket  handbooks,  which  were  available  here.  General  and  detailed  comparisons 
of  the  engraved  plates  of  these  works  with  plans  and  details  of  executed  x^merican 
buildings,  will  demonstrate  that  they  were  actually  used  as  sources  in  a  great  num- 
ber of  cases.     Every  new  English  fashion  had  thus  its  reflection  in  the  colonies. 

The  degree  of  success  and  rapidity  with  which  these  fashions  were  assimilated 
in  Colonial  America  was  not  substantially  less  than  in  provincial  England,  for 
buildings  representing  the  same  social  grade.  Many  Colonial  buildings  have  an 
application  of  the  classic  orders  in  an  isolated  and  ungrammatical  way,  but  Eng- 
lish buildings  from  the  same  period  showing  similar  traits  may  readily  be  in- 
stanced. On  the  other  hand,  as  we  shall  see,  American  houses  like  Mount  Airy, 
1758,  stand  on  the  same  artistic  level  with  their  true  congeners,  the  best  houses  of 
the  smaller  English  gentry  of  the  day. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  refute  the  suggestion  of  a  reverse  influence  of  Colo- 
nial architecture  on  that  of  England,  recently  put  forward  by  an  English  writer.- 
The  similarity  of  the  small  houses  of  the  later  Georgian  period  in  England  with 
contemporary  buildings  in  America,  which  he  remarks,  is  suiBciently  explained  by 

^"Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect"  (1916),  pp.  20,  note,  34-35,  90-101. 

"^  S.  C.  Ramsay,  "Small  Houses  of  the  Late  Georgian  Period"  (1919),  p.  7. 

60 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

the  derivation  of  both  from  English  handbooks.  Such  a  theory  arises  merely  be- 
cause appreciation  of  these  smaller  English  houses,  which  have  been  eclipsed  by 
their  great  neighbors,  has  only  come  after  the  Colonial  work  has  been  long  familiar. 
Armed  with  books,  a  cultivated  owner  or  an  ambitious  mechanic  was  often 
able  to  erect  buildings  which  would  have  honored  an  architect  by  profession,  and 
to  deserve  honor  as  an  architect,  although  not  a  professional  either  in  training  or 


Front  a  photograph  by  H.  P.  Cook 

Figure  35.     Mount  Airy,  Richmond  County,  Virginia.     i_2£8 

in  practice.  The  drawings  made,  with  rare  exceptions,  were  few  and  crude.  Even 
in  England,  in  1 700,  conditions  were  similar,  and  the  desirability  of  drawings  for 
ordinary  buildings  had  still  to  be  argued. 

'Tis  usual,  and  also  very  convenient,  for  any  person  before  he  begins  to  erect  a  Build- 
ing, to  have  Designs  or  Draughts  made  upon  Paper  or  Vellum  .  .  .  the  Ground  Plat  or 
Ichnography  of  each  Floor  or  Story.  ...  As  also  the  fashion  and  form  of  each  Front, 
together  with  the  Windows,  Doors  and  Ornaments.  .  .  .  The  drawing  of  Draughts  is 
most  commonly  the  work  of  a  Surveyor,  although  their  may  be  Master  Workmen  that 
will  contrive  a  building,  and  draw  the  Designs  thereof,  as  well  and  as  curiously,  as  most 
Surveyors:  Yea,  some  of  them  will  do  it  better  than  some  Surveyors;  especially  those 
Workmen  who  understand  the  Theorick  part  of  Building,  as  well  as  the  Practick."' 

'J.  Moxon,  "Mechanick  Exercises  .   .   .   the  Art  of  Bricklayers-Work"  (1700),  p.  15. 

61 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


The  plans  used  by  Benjamin  Wyatt  and  Richard  Munday  of  Newport,  among 
the  ablest  of  the  early  builders — the  oldest  domestic  designs  preserved,  now  first 
published  (figures  32  and  45) — are  incredibly  elementary.  Only  Peter  Harrison 
and  Sir  Francis  Bernard,  who  are  not  known  to  have  designed  any  dwellings,  with 
Hawks  and  JeflFerson  in  their  designs  for  Tryon's  Palace  and  for  Monticello,  are 
known  to  have  made  better  drawings  here  before  the  Revolution.    That  such  poor 


Figure  36.     Hutchinson  house,  Boston 
From  the  American  Magazine  of  Useful  Knowledge  (1836) 

diagrams  sufficed  was  due  less  to  "traditional"  knowledge  on  the  part  of  the 
craftsmen — for  they  had  constantly  to  assimilate  new  gospel  from  London — than 
to  the  admirable  designs  and  details  in  books,  consistent  in  style  and  clear  in  pres- 
entation, available  for  selection  and  adaptation. 

The  dependence  on  books  tended  to  give  the  leading  houses  a  style  common  to 
all  the  colonies.  Differing  economic  and  social  conditions  influenced  their  arrange- 
ment but  did  not  greatly  affect  the  character  of  their  forms.     Minor  houses  were 

62 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 


"^gMMIMIIIi 


more  subject  to  local  influences,  materials,  and  traditions,  so  that  among  them 
sharply  distinguished  local  types  grew  up,  like  those  representative  of  German- 
town  or  of  the  Connecticut  Valley.  Characteristics  personal  to  individual  de- 
signers are  more  difficult  to  trace,  tor  artistic  personalities  were  not  often  highly 
and  consistently  developed.  Where  designs  or  details  were  taken  from  books  they 
scarcely  embody  a  personal  quality.  Indeed,  it  is  possible  to  find  identical  details 
in  different  buildings,  signifying  identity,  not  in  the  hand  that  fashioned  them,  but 
in  the  plate  from  which  they  were  derived.  Nevertheless,  internal  evidence  may 
possibly  suffice  in  a  few  exceptional  cases 
for  the  attribution  of  buildings  to  indi- 
vidual designers,  either  men,  such  as 
Munday  and  Harrison,  known  from  docu- 
ments to  have  designed  other  buildings, 
or  men  whose  names  are  still  unknown. 

The  development  of  the  academic  style 
in  America  was  a  process  the  reverse  of 
that  in  England,  not  beginning  with  a 
great  personality  and  great  monuments 
embodying  the  really  fundamental  ideas 
of  form,  but  with  adoption  of  the  more 
superficial  forms  and  gradual  infusion  of 
more  thoroughgoing  academic  character. 
The  evolution  between  1700  and  the  War 
of  Independence  will  be  found  to  consist 
less  in  the  employment,  at  successive  peri- 
ods, of  this  or  that  special  type  of  plan  or 

of  detail,  than  in  the  increasing  permeation  of  the  designs  by  the  academic  spirit 
of  formal  organization.  This  evolution  naturally  proceecied  faster  in  the  more  im- 
portant houses.  In  minor  buildings  or  in  outlying  regions  earlier  types  persisted 
long  after  the  first  introduction  of  new  forms.  As  we  trace  the  progress  of  develop- 
ment shown  by  the  most  advanced  examples,  we  must  understand  that  many 
houses  lagged  a  generation  behind  in  this  or  that  respect,  or  even  as  a  whole. 

Of  the  established  materials  of  construction,  masonry  became  more  usual  in 
the  eighteenth  century  for  houses  of  importance.  Wood  continued  to  be  the  com- 
mon material  for  ordinary  Colonial  dwellings,  while  in  England  its  increasing  cost 
rendered  frame  houses  a  rarity  soon  after  the  adoption  of  the  academic  style.  In 
the  colonies  the  objection  to  masonry  on  the  score  of  dampness  continued,  and 

63 


Figure  37.     Capital  from  the  Hutchinson 
house,  Boston 

In  the  possession  of  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

this  must  have  been  especially  felt  in  the  North,  where  the.  trouble  from  condensa- 
tion was  greater.  In  any  case,  whereas  in  the  Middle  Colonies  and  the  South 
scarcely  a  house  of  the  first  distinction  was  built  ot  wood,  in  New  England  wood 
remained  in  use  for  many  of  the  very  finest  dwellings  until  long  after  the  Revolution. 
In  both  regions,  however,  there  were  exceptions  to  the  rule,  such  as  the  splendid 


From  a  f'hoti>f;rapit  by  I! .  r.  i    ,  , 

Figure  38.     Stratford,  Westmoreland  Count\-,  Virjiinia.      Between  17215  and  iT^o 

wooden  house  built  by  Colonel  John  Stuart  in  Charleston  about  ijyi,  so  that  one 
cannot  regard  the  general  choice  of  material  as  any  sure  index  of  development. 

Among  the  houses  of  masonry,  local  conditions,  rather  than  any  chronological 
change,  influenced  whether  brick  or  stone  should  be  used,  fine  houses  of  stone  being 
really  common  only  in  Pennsylvania.  In  the  type  of  stone  masonry  employed, 
however,  an  evolution  is  clearly  traceable.  At  Wynnestay  in  1689  rubble  was  used 
throughout;  at  Graeme  Park,  1721,  although  the  rear  and  ends  are  of  rubble,  the 
front  is  of  ashlar,  very  irregular  in  the  height  of  its  courses;  in  the  Daniel  Pastorius 
house,  1748,  and  at  Whitby,  1754,  the  ashlar  is  more  regular,  although  with  courses 
still  differing  somewhat;  at  Cliveden  (figure  ^S)^  after  1763,  and  in  the  later  por- 
tion of  the  Bartram  house,  1770,  there  is  almost  perfect  regularity  in  the  height 
and  length  of  the  blocks.    This  did  not  prevent  the  more  modest  houses  from  lag- 

64 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

ging  behind:  Mill  Grove,  1762,  and  the  Johnson  house  in  Germantown,  1768,  both 
have  rubble  in  parts.  In  Massachusetts  ashlar  appeared  earlier,  in  the  remarkable 
house  built  by  Thomas  Hancock  in  1737,  where  the  walls  were  o\  granite  in  courses 
of  uniform  height,  with  trim  of  Connecticut  sandstone  (figure  34).  In  New  York, 
the  \a.n  Cortlandt  house  at  Lower  Yonkers  was  built  of  rubble  in  1748;  in  Y\r- 


From  ii  /•holograph  by  Frank  Loiisrn.s 

Figure  39.     Mount  Pleasant,  Philadelphia.     After  1761 

ginia,  Mount  Airy,  perhaps  the  most  ambitious  house  in  the  colony,  1758,  had 
coursed  ashlar  of  somewhat  varying  height,  with  the  central  pavilion  and  trim  of 
lighter  stone  in  regular  courses  (figure  35). 

Little  moulded  or  carved  detail  was  executed  in  stone,  for  skilful  stone-cutters 
were  few.  Nevertheless,  there  are  notable  instances,  such  as  the  pilasters  of  the 
Hutchinson  house  in  Boston  (figures  36  and  37).  Although  they  were  built  two 
inches  into  the  wall,  it  is  almost  inconceivable  that  these  excellently  understood 
Ionic  capitals  can  date  from  the  original  erection  of  the  house,  between  168 1  and 
1691.  Possibly  they  were  added  after  the  fire  which  destroyed  the  cupola  in  1748. 
The  Marston  house,  the  first  brick  dwelling  in  Salem,  ascribed  to  1707,  as  we  have 
seen,  certainly  had  "stone  Corinthian  capitals."^    At  Drayton  Hall,  before  1758, 

1  Bentley  saw  one  in  179S.     "Dian,"  vol.  z,  p.  268. 
65 


Figure  40.     Plans  of  Hancock  house,  Boston.      1737  to  1740 

From  measured  drawings  by  John  Sturgis 

Courtesv  of  R.  Clipston  Sturgis 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 


the  columns  are  of  stone.  The  Miles  Brewton  house  in  Charleston,  finished 
1769,  has  stone  columns  for  its  fine  portico;  and  the  Bartram  house  in  Philadel- 
phia has  not  only  engaged  columns  of  stone  two  stories  in  height  but  moulded 
stone  window  architraves  added  in  1770. 

Brick  was  usually  laid  in  Flemish  bond,  but  this  was  not  an  absolute  rule,  and 
little  conclusion  can  be  drawn  from  the  deviations  from  it,  or  from  the  employment 
of  dark  headers.  Dressings  in  harder  brick  of  slightly  contrasting  color  about  the 
windows,  not  infrequent  in  England,  are  found  in  several  early  houses — the  Mul- 


Stratford,  Westmoreland  County,  Virginia 
Between  1725  and  1730 


Tuckalioc,  Goochland  Count}',  Virginia 
Before  1730 


Figure  41.     Examples  of  houses  with  the  H  plan 


berry,  Rosewell,  and  Stratford  (figure  38) — and  they  reappear  later  in  paint  at 
Whitehall  in  the  'sixties.  Moulded  bricks  were  used  for  the  water  table  in  a  build- 
ing as  early  as  the  Mulberry,  and  they  found  application  in  chimney-caps,  and 
even  in  cornices,  after  the  manner  figured  by  Moxon  in  1700.'  Colonel  Robert 
Brewton's  house  in  Charleston,  built  before  1733,  has  a  brick  cornice.  In  a  few 
Virginia  buildings  of  the  first  half  of  the  century  classic  doorways  were  executed 
in  brick:  Stratford,  1725-1730;  Christ  Church,  Lancaster  County,  1732;  the  Nelson 
house,  Yorktown;  Carter's  Grove,  175 1. 

'  "Mechanick  Exercises   .   .   .   the  Art  of  Bricklayers-Work,"  p.  28. 

67 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Stucco  was  occasionally  used  from  an  early  date,  especially  in  Charleston  and 
near  Philadelphia,  as  a  covering  for  both  brick  and  rubble.  Increased  warmth 
and  weatherproofness  seem  to  have  been  the  principal  reasons  for  its  employment 
rather  than  a  desire  to  imitate  stone.  Even  at  Mount  Pleasant  (figure  39),  after 
1761,  where  joints  are  ruled  to  resemble  ashlar,  the  brick  is  revealed  in  quoins. 
No  artistic  objection  to  brickwork  arises  until  after  the  Revolution. 

Although  the  general  tendency,  even  in  the  North,  was  toward  the  more  per- 
manent materials,  the  desire  for  richer  academic  detail  worked  in  the  opposite 


From  a  photograph  by  H.  P.  Cook 


Figure  42.     Tuckahoe 


direction.  Cornices,  window  and  door  entramements,  in  masonry  houses,  with  the 
few  exceptions  noted,  were  ordinarily  of  wood,  as  was  also  the  case  in  minor  houses 
in  England.  Wood  might  be  used  for  the  whole  fronts,  to  which  the  openings  were 
chiefly  confined,  when  the  gable-ends  of  the  house  were  of  brick:  in  the  Usher 
(Royall)  house  before  1700;  in  Tuckahoe;  in  the  Dummer  house,  Byfield,  Massa- 
chusetts. Later,  the  same  forces  even  led  to  the  casing  of  brick  walls  with  wood, 
in  which  elaborate  door  and  window  treatments  could  be  executed,  as  was  done 
with  the  east  facade  of  the  Royall  house  between  1733  and  1737,  or  with  the 
Pickman  house  on  Washington  Street  in  Salem,  built  of  brick  in  1764  and  faced 
with  wood  about  1790. 

68 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

In  the  matter  of  accommodations  the  houses  of  the  new  century  reflected  the 
greater  accumulation  of  wealth  and  higher  standards  of  comfort  and  convenience. 
The  ordinary  number  both  of  living-rooms  and  of  bedrooms  was  increased.  Kitchen 
and  hall,  parlor  and  bedroom,  were  no  longer  combined  in  houses  of  any  preten- 
sions. Beyond  this,  however,  differentiation  in  the  functions  ot  rooms  was  slow, 
as  it  had  been  abroad.  It  is  difficult  to  arrive  at  the  original  functions  of  the 
rooms  in  the  eighteenth-century  houses  of  the  colonies,  since  the  elaborate  inven- 
tories of  an  earlier  time  tended  to  be  discontinued,  but  documents  preserved  in  a 


Figure  43.     The  Mulberry,  Goose  Creek.  South  Carolina.      Between  1708  and  1725 

Courtesy  of  Ulrich  B.  Phillips 


tew  cases  show  that  the  uses  were  somewhat  indeterminate.  Thus  the  contract  for 
the  Ayrault  house  in  Newport,  1739,  speaks  of  "the  Front  Rooms  .  .  .  with  a 
Boffet  in  the  biggest  of  them."'  Specifications  regarding  the  Charles  Pinckney 
house  in  Colleton  Square,  Charleston,  1746,  mention  best  parlor,  back  parlor,  study 
and  office,  with  a  dining-room  on  the  second  floor.-  In  Charleston  it  was  usual  tor 
the  principal  rooms  to  be  above  the  ground  story,  even  where  this  was  not  regarded 
as  a  basement.  Examples  occasionally  occur  further  north,  as  in  the  Corbit  house, 
Odessa,  Delaware,  built  1772  to  1774.    The  arrangement  was   not  uncommon  in 

'  Published  in  full  by  G.  C.  Mason,  Jr.,  in  American  Architect,  vol.  10  (1881),  p.  83. 
-A.  R.  H.  Smith,  "Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston"  (1917),  pp.  307-310. 

69 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

English  academic  houses,  being  early  exemplified  in  Coleshill.     In  the  South  the 
kitchen  was  henceforth  placed  outside  the  house  in  a  detached  building. 

Elements  of  circulation  received  a  development  which,  with  the  increased  num- 
ber ot  rooms,  for  the  first  time  made  privacy  possible.  Henceforth,  as  in  Europe 
since  about  1640,  the  ideal  was,  by  means  of  hallways,  to  make  it  unnecessary  to 
traverse  any  room  to  reach  another.  Further  privacy  and  seclusion  of  the  activi- 
ties ot  servants  were  secured  by  the  provision  of  a  secondary  staircase.  This  ap- 
pears in  Rosewell  and  Stenton  before  1730,  the  Hancock  house,  Boston,  1737  (figure 


Figure  44.      Plan  of  Graeme  Park,  Horsham,  Pennsylvania.     John  Kirk,  1721  to  1722 


40),  the  John  Vassall  house,  Cambridge,  1759,  Cliveden,  after  1763,  the  Chase  house, 
Annapolis,  1765,  and  elsewhere,  but  it  remained  exceptional  even  in  fine  houses. 

In  form  the  house  of  the  eighteenth  century,  typically,  was  compact  in  mass, 
two  rooms  deep  from  the  start  in  both  stories,  with  ample  hallways.  Such  a 
scheme,  first  used,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  Tufts  and  Sergeant  houses  about  1680, 
was  not  universally  adopted  with  the  opening  of  the  new  century,  however,  even 
in  the  most  pretentious  houses.  With  the  tendency  usual  in  the  history  of  archi- 
tecture, to  greater  conservatism  in  general  form  than  in  detail,  some  of  these  fol- 
lowed plans  which  belonged  essentially  to  the  previous  period. 

Thus  the  H  plan,  already  familiar  to  us  in  Fairfield,  and  in  the  "Slate  House," 
was  retained  in  several  notable  houses,  especially  in  Virginia,  continuing  until  after 

70 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 


1750  (figure  41).  Although  this  was  the  survival  of  an  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean 
arrangement,  it  would  be  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  it  represents  an  arrear  in  rela- 
tion to  provincial  England.  The  H  plan  remained  in  use  there,  also,  such  a  notable 
example  as  Clifford  Chambers  falling  well  within  the  eighteenth  century.  Tuck- 
ahoe  (figure  42),  probably  about  1710  and  certainly  before  1730,  has  slender  wings 


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Figure  45.     Plan  for  the  A3'rault  house,  Newport.     Richard  Munday,  1739 
From  the  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of  George  C.  Mason 

a  single  room  wide,  with  entry  and  stairs  in  the  centre  of  each,  and  a  hall,  still 
occupying  the  traditional  position  of  the  old  English  hall  in  the  central  block.  Its 
astonishingly  detailed  resemblance  to  one  of  the  plates  in  Primatt's  book  (figure  30) 
can  leave  little  doubt  that  it  was  derived  precisely  from  this  source.  Stratford, 
also  before  1730,  has  wider  wings  of  four  rooms  each.  The  latest  example  is  Elsing 
Green,  rebuilt  in  1758.  In  the  North,  also,  this  plan  was  not  without  a  late  repre- 
sentative in  the  country  house  built  by  William  Browne  in  Beverly  before  1744, 
still  unfinished  in  1750. 

71 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Although  the  date  ot  17 14  on  the  weather-vanes  of  the  Mulberry  in  South 
Carolina  may  not  be  wholly  accurate,  this  unique  building  (figure  43),  on  land 
acquired  in  1708,  was  certainly  standing  in  1725.  In  plan  it  is  the  most  elaborate" 
ot  the  Jacobean  survivals,  having  four  nearly  detached  corner  towers  of  one  story, 
with  roofs  of  fantastic  shape.  The  suggestion  that  the  Mulberry  was  "built  after 
the  picture  ot  'Seaton,'  the  English  home  of  the  Brough tons,"'  is  an  erroneous 
one,  in  spite  of  the  existence  of  projecting  corner  towers  in  Vanbrugh's  famous 
design,  executed  1 720-1 721. 

Among  rectangular  houses,  some,  especially  at  first,  remained  but  a  single  room 
in  depth.  These  were  chiefly  among  the  minor  houses,  the  dates  of  which  are  rarely 
established.  Some  important  examples  exist,  however,  especially  in  Charleston, 
where  such  houses  were  known  as  "single  houses"  by  contrast  with  the  thicker 
"double  houses,"  and  where  they  are  placed  characteristically  with  their  ends  to 
the  street.  The  oldest  datable  one  now  standing  is  that  ot  Colonel  Robert  Brewton, 
built  prior  to  1733;  a  much  later  one,  that  of  Judge  Robert  Pringle.  Both  these 
have  a  central  hall  running  through  the  house  and  containing  the  stairs.  At  Graeme 
Park,  near  Philadelphia,  built  by  John  Kirk  tor  Sir  William  Keith  in  1 721-1722, 
the  house  is  three  rooms  in  length,  but  care  was  taken  to  make  them  all  accessible 
from  the  stair  hall,  which  is  a  shallow  passage  in  front  of  the  small  central  room 
(figure  44).  Whitby  Hall,  also  near  Philadelphia,  built  in  1754,  with  two  rooms 
down-stJ\irs  and  a  transverse  hall,  has  the  stairs  projecting  in  a  gabled  tower. 

A  common  form  in  which  the  house  remained  but  a  single  room  in  depth  was 
the  L,  with  a  wing  or  "ell"  extended  back  at  right  angles  to  the  house.  An  im- 
portant dated  example  in  which  the  wing  torms  part  ot  the  original  construction 
is  the  ^'an  Cortlandt  house  at  Lower  Yonkers,  built  1 748-1 749.  Here,  as  in  the 
Philipse  manor-house  at  Yonkers,  there  is  a  second  stair  hall  in  the  wing,  so  that 
the  rooms  beyond  have  independent  access,  although  to  pass  from  one  hall  to  the 
other  one  must  traverse  a  room  or  step  out  of  doors.  An  analogous  arrangement 
exists  at  Woodford,  built  after  1756.  x'\s  a  later  addition  the  ell  frequently  appears 
with  all  types  of  houses. 

Among  the  houses  two  rooms  in  depth,  the  plan  with  a  central  chimney,  ob- 
structing circulation,  survived  for  some  time,  even  in  pretentious  houses.  Thus  it 
was  followed  in  the  house  built  by  Richard  Munday  at  Newport  for  Daniel  Ayrault, 
a  leading  merchant,  in  spite  of  a  shell  doorhead  and  "Mundillion  Cornish."  Pen- 
cil lines  on  the  plan  (figure  45)  and  an  increased  estimate  show  that  an  alternative 
scheme  with  "Entry  through;  2  stacks  Chimneys"  was  considered  but  rejected  on 

'  Ravenel,  "Charleston,"  1906,  p.  65. 
72 


VVestover,  Charles  City  County,  Virginia 
Shortly  after  1726 


John  Vassall  (Longfellow)  house 
Cambridge,  Mass.      1759 


Gunston  Hall,  Fairfax  County 

Virginia.      1758 


Miles  Brewton  house,  Charleston 
1765  to  1769 


Chase  house,  Annapolis.      1769  to  1 771 

Figure  46.     Houses  with  a  transverse  hall 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

account  of  cost.^     Both  this  house  and  the  similar  one  built  for  Ninyon    Challoner, 

1735)  however,  had  back  stairs  which  gave  some  privacy  to  the  rear  rooms  above. 

Among  the  houses  where  free  access  to  all  the  rooms  is  provided,  it  would  be 


Governor's  Palace,  Williamsburg,  Virginia 
1705  to  1706 


Stenton,  Germantown,  Pennsylvania 

1728 


Carter's  Grove,  James  City  County,  Virginia 
David  Minitree,  1751 


Cliveden,  Germantown,  Pennsylvania 
After  1763 


Figure  47.    Houses  with  a  developed  front  hall,  and  a  stair  hall  at  the  rear 

a  mistake  to  suppose  a  general  chronological  sequence  for  the  several  types  of 
arrangement.  Rather  we  find,  irrespective  of  general  type,  an  historical  progres- 
sion, from  functional  arrangement  with  little  regard  for  formal  relationships,  to 
formal  symmetry  with  attention  to  the  composition  of  space.    This  appears  most 

^  Documents  published  by  G.  C.  Mason,  Jr.,  in  American  Architect,  vol.  10  (1881),  pp.  83-84. 


74 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

clearly  in  the  type  of  plan  with  a  transverse  hall  containing  the  stairs,  and  that 
with  a  hall  the  fore  part  of  which  is  given  special  development.  Influenced  by  the 
general  progression,  the  type  with  a  hall  expanded  to  one  side  tended  to  disappear 
toward  the  close  of  the  period,  and  the  type  with  a  broad  transverse  hall  kept  free 
from  stairs  then  had  its  use. 

A  house  of  four  rooms  to  a  floor,  with  a  transverse  stair  hall,  was  the  most 
common  of  Colonial  types  (figure  46).     In  the  Royall  house,  Medford,  this  form 


^^^rwm'x:"^ss";j-^~  ■J^i'&^-ifi^"^ 


^saj^sT^Ks; 


O        «        9        S    £   <:S 


Ljl^ 


Figure  48.     Plan  from  Palladio,  Book  II,  plate  41 


resulted  from  an  actual  doubling  of  the  original  depth  (figure  19),  and  in  others 
the  form  is  not  substantially  different — the  hall  relatively  narrow  with  little  atten- 
tion to  its  spatial  effect.  In  some  it  is  given  a  width  more  in  proportion  to  the 
total  depth.  Noted  datable  examples,  besides  the  Sergeant  house  from  the  pre- 
vious century,  are  Westover,  after  1726;  the  Hancock  house,  Boston,  1737;  Gun- 
ston  Hall  in  Virginia,  1758;  the  John  Vassall  (Longfellow)  house  at  Cambridge, 
1759;  the  Jeremiah  Lee  house  at  Marblehead,  1768;  and  the  Chase  house  at  An- 
napolis, 1 769-1 77 1.  At  Westover  the  hall  derives  its  width,  two  of  the  seven  equal 
bays  of  the  front,  at  the  expense  of  the  rooms,  less  important,  on  one  side.  In  cer- 
tain other  examples,  where  the  fore  part  of  the  hall  is  symmetrical  in  relation  to 

75 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

the  doorway,  the  rear  part  is  slightly  narrowed  or  widened.  As  early  as  the  Han- 
cock house,  however,  and  again  at  Gunston,  the  hall  itself  is  perfectly  symmetrical, 
although  the  stair  rises  along  one  wall  and  finishes  on  the  other,  so  that  the  in- 


Rosewell,  Gloucester  Count}',  Virginia.      Before  T730 


Shirley,  Charles  City  County.  Virginia 


Kenmore,  Fredericksburg,  Virginia  Brice  house,  Annapolis 

Figure  49.     Houses  with  a  stair  hall  expanded  to  one  side 

terior  spaces  are  unbalanced.  At  the  Chase  house,  where  the  lower  run  is  central 
and  divides  on  the  landing,  the  stairs  are  brought  into  relation  to  the  balanced  hall. 
A  number  of  Colonial  houses  have  a  hall  with  the  front  part  treated  as  a  room, 
the  stairs  in  a  separate  and  smaller  space  to  the  rear  (figure  47).  Early  examples 
of  this,  such  as  the  Governor's  Palace  at  Williamsburg,  and  Stenton,  are  of  much 

76 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

irregularity.  After  the  middle  ot  the  century  the  scheme  is  reduced  to  the  sym- 
metry seen  at  Carter's  Grove  and  Cliveden.  In  this  form  it  has  some  affiliation 
with  such  plans  ot  Palladio  as  those  of  his  Book  II,  plates  32,  41  (figure  48),  and 
61  (figure  73),  in  which  the  central  apartments  constitute  an  inverted  T,  although 


Mount  Air\-.      1758 


Mount  Pleasant.      After  1 761 


Whitehall,  Anne  Arundell  Countv.  Maryland 
1763  fF. 


Van  Rensselaer  house,  Albany.      1765 
Figure  50.     Houses  with  a  broad  transverse  hall  free  from  stairs,  and  stairs  placed  laterally 


none  of  these  has  the  stairs  in  the  stem  of  the  T,  as  have  the  Colonial  examples.  At 
Carter's  Grove  an  arch  frameci  by  pilasters  connects  the  two  parts;  at  Cliveden 
they  are  separated  by  a  screen  of  columns. 

Although  of  the  half-dozen  notable  Colonial  houses  with  a  hall  expanded  to  one 
side  (figure  49)  there  is  an  authentic  date  only  for  Rosewell,  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  the  others  all   belong  prior  to  about  1760.'    The  scheme  was  one  in- 

'  The  dates  commonly  assigned  these  houses  are  as  follows:  Shirley,  1700;  the  Brice  house,  Annapolis,  about 
1740;  Kenmore,  about  1750;  the  Moffat  (Ladd)  house,  Portsmouth,  1763. 


77 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


capable  of  that  symmetrical  co-ordinatiun  with  the  whole  which  was  sought  in  the 
finest  houses  after  that  date,  and  thenceforth  other  schemes  were  preferred  to  it. 
The  Hammond  (Harwood)  house,  at  Annapolis,  in  which  the  stairs  are  cut  off  by 
a  wall,  may  perhaps  be  considered  a  continuation. 

One  of  the  favorite  types  after  about  1760  was  the  plan  with  a  broad  trans- 
verse hall  tree  of  stairs,  which  were  placed  in  separate  compartments  at  the  side 
(figure  50).  The  first  dated  example  is  Mount  Airy,  which  reveals  the  fundamental 
resemblance  of  the  scheme  to  one  of  Palladio's,  embodied  in  his  Book  II,  plates  ^^ 

(figure  51),  4j,  44,  48,  and  52.  No  doubt 
there  were  intermediate  ancestors  in  Eng- 
lish books,  such  as  Gibbs's"  Book  of  Archi- 
tecture," plates  55,  59,  and  62,  but  the 
ultimate  progenitor  is  unmistakable.  At 
Mount  Airy  there  is  even  the  sunk  loggia 
familiar  in  Palladio.  Other  fine  houses, 
with  no  staircase  in  the  central  hall,  all 
from  the  'sixties,  are  Mount  Pleasant,  the 
\an  Rensselaer  house,  and  Whitehall,  the 
hall  of  the  last  rising  through  the  two 
stories.  So  common,  however,  is  the  as- 
sumption that  the  splendid  central  stair- 
case was  an  invariable  feature,  that  leg- 
ends of  the  former  existence  of  such  fea- 
tures have  grown  up  to  explain  their  lack  ! 
Exceptional  plans  characterize  a  few 
houses,  notably  those  of  the  governor  at 
Annapolis  and  of  Jefferson  at  Monticello, 
erected  in  its  original  form  in  1771  and  following  years.  The  Governor's  house 
had  a  long  drawing-room  at  the  rear,  across  the  full  width  of  the  main  block,  with 
a  projecting  bay  in  the  centre.  Wings,  set  back  on  the  facade,  form  end  pavilions  on 
the  rear.  Monticello,  as  it  stood  down  to  1796  (figure  52),  likewise  had  its  "par- 
lour" in  the  centre  of  the  garden-front,  but  the  whole  room  projected  in  octagonal 
form — as  illustrated  in  several  designs  in  Robert  Morris's  "Select  Architecture" 
(1759),  which  Jefferson  owned — after  the  manner  of  a  French  sa/o?i. 

The  academic  striving  for  formal  organization  brought  the  outbuildings  into 
symmetrical  relation  with  the  main  house.  This  was  specially  true  of  the  large 
independent  plantations  of  the  South,  where  the  outbuildings  assumed  greater  im- 

78 


Figure  51.     Plan  from  Palladio,  Book  II 
plate  33 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

portance  (figure  53).  It  is  sometimes  difficult  to  determine  absolute  priority  in 
the  adoption  of  a  given  scheme,  since  outbuildings  and  house  are  not  necessarily 
contemporary.  The  oldest  building  with  a  pair  of  offices  symmetrically  placed  was 
the  Governor's  Palace  at  Williamsburg,  itself  built  1705-1706.  They  were  con- 
nected with  the  main  building  by  a  wall,  constituting  a  shallow  forecourt  in  front 
of  it.  At  Westover,  Ampthill,  and  Carter's  Grove  (figure  54),  a  pair  of  offices  stood 
isolated,  in  line  with  the  main  house.    At  Stratford  and  at  Nomini  Hall  four  iso- 


Figure  52.     Monticello.     Plan  for  the  house  and  outbuildings.     Thomas  Jefferson,  1772 
From  the  original  drawing  in  the  Coolidge  collection 

lated  buildings  marked  the  corner  of  a  great  square  around  the  house,  while  at 
Mount  Pleasant  two  outbuildings  occupy  a  similar  advanced  position  on  one  front. 
In  the  great  houses  of  Annapolis  and  its  neighborhood — the  Brice,  Paca,  and  Har- 
wood  houses,  and  Whitehall — the  outbuildings  were  connected  with  the  main  house 
by  lateral  passages.  With  Mount  Airy,  1758,  appeared  the  Palladian  scheme  of 
advanced  outbuildings  connected  with  the  house  by  curved  passages,  and  this  was 
adopted  also  in  Tryon's  Palace,  1 767-1 770,  and  in  the  enlargements  of  Mount  ^^er- 
non  begun  on  the  eve  of  the  Revolution.  Jefferson  likewise  studied  this  scheme,^ 
but  preferred  the  other  Palladian  arrangement  of  long  L-shaped  passages  flanked 

'  Kinihall,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  figs.  27,  28,  99. 


n 


n 


Governor's  Palace,  Williamsburg 


D 


n 


n 


Mount  Pleasant 


Mount  Airv 


D 


D 


D 


Stratford 


Carter's  Grove 


Mount  X'ernon 


Figure  ?v     Relation  of  outbuildings  to  the  house 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

by  rooms  and  fronted  by  colonnades.  Unlike  those  of  the  other  houses,  which 
rose  from  the  same  grade  as  the  house  itself,  his  service  wings  were  reduced  to  the 
basement  level  to  form  terraces,  above  which  rose  merely  decorative  outbuildings. 
Other  elements  than  the  rectangle  were  rarely  involved  in  Colonial  plans.  Cor- 
ners were  sometimes  cut  off  diagonally  for  fireplaces  or  cupboards,  as  at  Stenton. 
No  single  instance  of  a  circular  or  elliptical  room,  or  of  a  curved  projection  on  the 
exterior,  is  attested  before  the  Revolution.  Even  the  octagonal  projecting  bay, 
which  appeared  in  English  books  about  iJc;o,  is  found  only  in  a  few  late  examples: 


Front  a  f  holograph  by  H.  P.  Coob 


Figure  54.     Carter's  Grove.      1751 


Monticello,  1771;  Lansdowne,  1773;  and  the  Harwood  house  at  Annapolis,  also  on 
the  eve  of  the  war,  being  the  surely  dated  ones.  The  rear  wing  of  the  Roger  Morris 
(Jumel)  house  in  New  York,  an  octagon  of  unequal  sides,  is  shown  by  early  de- 
scriptions to  form  part  of  the  original  edifice  of  1765.  The  polygonal  porch  ot  the 
Schuyler  house,  Albany,  is  a  later  addition;'  whether  the  same  is  true  of  the  one 
at  Gunston  Hall  is  uncertain. 

The  stories  in  Colonial  houses  of  the  eighteenth  century  usually  remained  two 
in  number,  but  houses  of  three  stories  became  increasingly  common,  especially  in 
the  towns.     In  England  academic  country  houses  of  three  stories,  ascribed  to  Webb 

'  G.  Schuyler,  "The  Schuyler  Mansion"  (1911),  p.  7. 
81 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

— Thorpe  Hall  and  Ashdown  House — were  erected  about  the  time  ot  the  Restora- 
tion. As  early  as  1679  the  Sergeant  house  in  Boston  seems  to  have  had  its  full 
three  stories,  and  by  1700,  or  soon  after,  the  Hutchinson,  Clark  (Frankland),  and 
Faneuil  houses  there  had  three.  Jeremy  Belknap  wrote  of  the  houses  of  Boston: 
"Those  which  were  built  after  the  fire  of  171 1,  were  of  brick,  three  stories  high, 
with  a  garret,  a  flat  roof  (/.  i?.,  a  deck)  and  balustrade."^  At  Charleston  the  Robert 
Brewton  house,  built  before  1733,  had  three  stories,  which  were  not  uncommon 
there  henceforth.  In  the  less  closely  built  towns  their  coming  was  slower:  at  Salem 
there  are  datable  examples  (Orne  and  Pickman-Derby  houses)  in  1761  and  1764; 
at  Marblehead  (Jeremiah  Lee  house)  in  1768;  at  Annapolis  (Chase  house)  in  1769. 
In  the  country  the  earliest  step  in  the  same  direction  was  the  raising  of  the  east 


Figure  55.     Diagram  of  a  curb  roof 
From  William  Pain:  The  Practical  House  Carpenter 

front  of  the  old  Usher  house  in  Medford  by  Isaac  Royall,  between  1733  and  1737, 
so  that  it  had  three  stories  on  that  side,  to  one  on  the  west  (figure  19).  Later  the 
west  tront  was  raised  to  an  equal  height.  From  the  'fifties  or  early  'sixties  comes 
the  Cozzens  (Bull)  house  near  Newport;  from  between  1760  and  1769,  the  house 
of  Governor  Francis  Bernard  in  Jamaica  Plain,-  Massachusetts;  and  from  1767- 
1770  Governor  Tryon's  Palace  at  Newbern,  North  Carolina — all  of  three  full 
stories  from  the  start.  A  basement  partly  above  ground,  still  absent  in  Graeme 
Park,  and  the  McPhedris  (Warner)  house,  Portsmouth,  in  the  'twenties,  became 
usual,  as  in  such  English  houses  as  Coleshill  and  Thorpe  Hall. 

The  heights  ot  the  stories  showed  a  marked  increase  over  those  of  the  century 
previous.  Whereas  it  was  not  uncommon  before  1700  to  have  the  bottoms  of  the 
summers  in  the  lower  story  actually  less  than  six  feet  from  the  floor,  at  Graeme 
Park  in  1722  the  parlor  ceiling  was  eleven  feet  four  inches  in  the  clear.  A  foot  more 
or  less  than  this  was  the  normal  range  in  the  lower  stories  of  the  finest  houses  be- 

^  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  vol.  i  (1795),  p-  190. 
=  F.  S.  Drake:   "History  of  Roxbury"  (1875),  p.  428. 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 


tween  this  and  the  Revolution — variations  corresponding  to  wealth  and  preten- 
sions rather  than  to  any  steady  evolution.  At  Carter's  Grove,  1751,  the  lower 
rooms  had  a  height  of  thirteen  and  a  half  feet,  and  at  Monticello,  1 771-1775,  the 
very  exceptional  height  ot  eighteen  teet.  The  second  story  was  generally  lower, 
ranging  from  nine  to  twelve  feet,  although  where  there  were  important  rooms  up- 
stairs the  root  space  was  occasionally  turned  to  advantage  for  a  coved  ceiling.     In 


From  .t  photo^riifih  by  t  ■- 


Figure  56.     McPhedris  house,  Portsmouth.      Before  1728 


the  Miles  Brewton  house,  1765-1769,  such  a  cove  attained  the  height  of  seventeen 
feet.  \Yhere  there  was  a  third  story,  this,  as  in  England,  was  generally  shorter 
than  those  below.  Only  in  the  case  of  the  Clark  (Frankland)  house,  if  we  may 
trust  old  views,  was  this  as  high  as  the  rest,  or  higher. 

The  roof  forms  underwent  significant  transformations,  a  general  tendency  to 
flatter  slopes,  less  total  height,  and  level  cornice  lines  dominating  the  development 
ot  particular  types. 

Of  the  gable  roofs,  which  had  previously  been  characteristic,  the  curb  or  gam- 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

brel  form,  flattened  only  at  the  summit,  represented  the  survival  ot  the  old  steep 
slope.  Francis  Price  wrote  of  a  figure  in  his  "British  Carpenter,"  1733:  "8B  is 
called  a  kerb  roof,  and  is  much  in  use,  on  account  ot  its  giving  so  much  room 
within  side."  English  books  of  the  middle  of  the  century  abound  in  diagrams  for 
the  trusses  of  such  mansard  roofs  (figure  55),^  with  nothing  to  reveal  that  they 
were  not  intended  to  be  carried  out  to  a  gable.      In  the  McPhedris  house  at  Ports- 


From  a  fi/wtog'.i/^h  by  J''.t>ii-  i.\'ii.-.:-is 

Figure  57.     Graeme  Park,  Horsham,  Pennsylvania.     John  Kirk,  1721  to  1722 


mouth,  certainly  before  1728,  and  probably  finished  by  i~22,  the  brick  wall  ot  the 
gable  rises  above  the  roof  according  to  earlier  fashion,  both  along  the  slope  and 
between  the  tall  pairs  of  chimneys  (figure  56).  Elsewhere  and  later,  a  raking  mould- 
ing extends  along  the  gable.  Usually  this  goes  by  the  chimneys,  also,  although  in 
the  north  gable  of  the  Van  Cortlandt  house.  Lower  Yonkers,  it  is  interrupted  by 
the  chimney,  as  late  as  1748.     Here,  as  in  the  McPhedris  house,  the  eaves  cornice 

'  E.  g.,  W.  Salmon's  "  Palladio  Londinensis,"  1738  (first  edition,  1734),  pi.  34;  Batty  Langley's  "City  and 
Country  Builder's  .  .  .  Treasury,"  1745  (first  edition,  1740),  and  "  Builder's  Jewel,"  1752,  pis.  89,  92;  W.  Pain's 
"Practical  Builder,"  fourth  edition,  Boston,  1792,  pis.  4,  5;  etc. 

84 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

is  mitred  against  the  facade  without  turning  the  corner.  It  was  m  Graeme  Park 
(figure  57)  and  in  the  Hancock  house  (figure  58)  that  a  more  academic  treatment 
was  first  used,  a  short  horizontal  return  on  the  gable-end,  which  became  universal 
in  the  best  later  houses  of  the  type. 

A  truncation  of  the  gable  itself,  analogous  to  that  of  the  roof  in  these  houses, 
securing  the  practical  advantages  of  the  vertical  wall  while  reducing  the  effect  of 


East      l-'leralion 


Scafe     '*    Jftr/t    /o  f//oo/. 


Figure  58.     Hancock  house,  Boston.     East  elevation 

From  a  measured  drawmg  by  John  Sturgis 

Courtesy  of  R.  Clipston  Sturgis 


height,  occurs  in  several  instances.  This  form  of  roof,  sometimes  called  the  jerkin- 
head,  is  spoken  of  in  estimates  for  the  Pinckney  house  in  Charleston  (figure  6G)  as 
a  hipp'd  wall  roof,"  and  again  as  a  "snug  dutch  roof." '  In  the  earliest  examples 
soon  after  1700 — the  Charles  Read  house  ("London  Coffee-house")  and  the  Joshua 
Carpenter  house  in  Philadelphia,  with  their  steep  roofs,  as  well  as  the  Mulberry 
(figure  43),  where  it  is  used  in  connection  with  the  gambrel — the  motive  of  its 

'  Smith,  "DwL-lHng  Houses  of  Charleston,"  pp.  361,  367. 
85 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

origin  clearly  appears.  xA^lthough  unacademic,  it  continued  in  occasional  use  when 
the  slope  was  less,  as  in  the  outbuildings  of  Stratford,  in  the  Pinckney  house,  1746, 
in  Kenmore,  near  Fredericksburg,  and  even  after  the  Revolution  in  Woodlawn, 
built  by  a  son  of  the  owner  of  Kenmore. 

More  commonly  the  gable,  when  retained,  merely  received  a  lower  slope,  con- 
forming to  that  of  a  pediment.  This  was  already  true  of  the  Sergeant  and  Penn 
houses  before  1700.  Among  the  more  pretentious  houses  of  the  eighteenth  century 
with  a  pitch  roof  few  of  the  slopes  exceed  thirty  degrees.  The  evolution  of  the 
gable  end  is  the  same  as  with  the  gambrel.  At  Tuckahoe  (figure  42),  soon  after 
1700,  the  cornice  is  cut  off  squarely;  in  the  Governor  Dummer's  house  at  Byfield, 
Massachusetts,  probably  between  171 2  and  17 16,'  it  is  mitred  back  against  the 
facade.  A  short  return  around  the  corner  occurs  in  the  Grant  house  at  East  Wind- 
sor, Connecticut,  1758,  and  in  the  Johnson  house,  Germantown,  1768,  both  in  gen- 
eral somewhat  backward  tor  their  time.  The  ultimate  form  was  the  full  pediment, 
with  a  horizontal  cornice  completely  across  the  end,  foreshadowed  in  the  Sergeant 
house  and  even  in  the  Penn  house,  where  a  heavy  penthouse  unites  the  eaves. 
The  accepted  relation  of  horizontal  and  raking  cornices  in  a  true  pediment,  with 
the  cyma  only  along  the  rake,  is  one  of  the  test-questions  of  academic  architecture. 
It  appears  first  in  the  central  pavilions  of  Rosewell  (figure  6^)  before  1730,  and  sub- 
sequently in  houses  of  specially  architectonic  character.  Its  earliest  certain  appear- 
ance as  the  termination  of  a  main  roof  is  at  Cliveden  after  1763.  Meanwhile  in 
Pennsylvania,  where  the  gable  roof  enjoyed  a  special  vogue,  a  form  appears  inter- 
mediate between  this  and  that  of  the  Penn,  Read,  and  Joshua  Carpenter  houses, 
with  horizontal  cornice  also  crowned  by  a  cyma  and  covered  by  a  small  penthouse 
roof.  This  occurs  in  dated  examples  from  1744  to  1762;  at  Whitby,  1754,  side  by 
side  with  a  grammatical  pediment  on  the  staircase  tower. 

Fully  half  of  the  more  important  Colonial  houses  of  the  eighteenth  century  had 
the  hip-roof  with  a  level  cornice  line  all  about,  as  in  Coleshill,  Thorpe  Hall,  and 
other  English  houses  ascribed  to  Inigo  Jones  and  Webb,  and  dated  about  1650. 
This  form  was  first  adopted  in  x'\merica,  as  we  have  seen,  just  before  1700.  The 
earliest  examples  rose  to  a  ridge,  and  the  ridge  was  retained  until  the  Revolution 
in  those  houses  in  which  the  masses  were  relatively  narrow,  whether  in  an  H  plan 
or  a  long  rectangle.  Even  where  the  house  was  more  nearly  square  there  were 
certain  instances  of  keeping  the  ridge,  as  Westover  (figure  59)  after  :^2S6  'i''"^  Car- 
ter's Grove  in  1751,  with  their  vast  expanse  of  roof  surface.  In  general,  however, 
such  a  roof  was  cut  off  at  the  top.     Sometimes  this  was  done  in  the  true  mansard 

^  Currier,  "Oiild  Ne\vbur\-,"  pp.  317-319. 

86 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

form  with  steep  lower  slopes,  and  tour  visible  upper  slopes  ot  less  inclination,  as  at 
Ampthill,  Chesterfield  County,  ^'irginia,  about  1732;  Shirley  Place,  Roxbury, 
Massachusetts,  1746;  the  Van  Cortlandt  house.  Lower  Yonkers,  1748;  the  John 
Vassall  (Longfellow)  house,  1759;  and  a  number  of  fine  houses  of  undetermined 
date,  none  of  them  substantially  later  than  these.  Even  before  this  time,  in  ex- 
ceptional instances,  the  roof  was  cut  off  by  a  deck,  as  nearly  flat  as  might  be,  as  in 


Figure  60.     Stenton,  Germ.intown.      ijiB 

the  prominent  English  houses  named  above.  This  is  the  case  at  Stenton,  1728 
(figure  60).  x-^fter  1750  the  deck  was  almost  universal  in  the  better  houses  of  rela- 
tively square  mass,  whatever  their  location:  Woodford,  Mount  Pleasant,  and  Lans- 
downe  at  Philadelphia,  the  Chase  house  at  Annapolis,  the  Schuyler  and  Roger 
Morris  houses  in  New  York,  the  Timothy  Orne  house  in  Salem,  Drayton  Hall  and 
the  Miles  Brewton  house  in  South  Carolina. 

A  significant  feature  of  the  roof  was  the  balustrade  that  was  frequently  used 
with  it.  We  have  seen  that  Belknap  mentions  balustrades  as  used  in  Boston  after 
171 1,  bordering  a  flat  deck.  Such  a  flat  deck  balustrade  first  appeared  in  England 
at  Coleshill,  under  the  Commonwealth.    The  earliest  Colonial  example  remaining  is 

88 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

that  of  the  McPhedris  house  in  Portsmouth,  surely  before  1728  and  probably  fin- 
ished in  1722,  which  has  a  balustrade  from  chimney  to  chimney,  along  the  curbs 
dividing  the  upper  and  lower  slopes  of  its  gambrel  roof  (figure  56).  One  likewise 
occurs  with  the  gambrel  in  the  Hancock  and  Pickman  houses  (1737  and  1750), 
where  it  also  returns  across  the  ends  (figures  J4  and  63).  With  the  mansard  roof 
(figures  67, 68)  it  appears  in  Shirley  Place,  Roxbury  (after  1746),  and  the  John  Vassall 


Figure  61.     Ro\all  house,  Medford.     East  front.     Between  i^l}  ''"d  1737 

house  (1759);  with  the  hip-roof  having  a  deck — its  truly  tunctional  use — in  Wood- 
lord  (alter  1756),  Mount  Pleasant  (figure  39,  after  1761),  and  Lansdowne  (1773- 
1777)  at  Philadelphia,  in  the  Orne  House  at  Salem  (1761),  and  in  the  Roger  Morris 
house  in  New  York  (1765).  Simultaneously,  to  be  sure,  the  same  types  of  roof 
continued  to  be  used  also  without  a  balustrade,  as  at  Thorpe  Hall:  the  mansard 
having  none  in  the  Van  Cortlandt  house  (1748);  the  hip-roof  with  a  deck  having 
none  in  Stenton  (1728),  in  Drayton  Hall  (before  1756),  in  the  Miles  Brewton  house, 
Charleston  (1765-1769),  and  in  the  Chase  house,  Annapolis  (1769-1771). 

Meanwhile  the  balustrade  had  appeared  in  another  position,  which  was  tiestined 
to  be  preferred  in  future,  along  the  eaves.    A  terrace  roof,  covered  with  lead,  with 

89 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHIIECTURE 

a  balustrade  above  the  cornice,  had  long  been  adopted  in  Europe  for  buildings  of 
the  greatest  academic  pretensions,  as,  in  England,  Whitehall  and  the  Queen's 
House.  It  was  adopted  at  Rosewell  in  Virginia  by  1730.  In  minor  English  build- 
ings for  which  a  sloping  roof  was  retained,  a  parapet  or  balustrade  was  neverthe- 
less often  introduced  to  approximate  the  fashionable  effect.  The  oldest  house  in 
the  colonies  which  has  such  an  eaves-balustrade  is  the  Schuyler  house,  Albany, 
1 76 1,  and  there  is  no  special  reason  to  suppose  it  did  not  form  part  of  the  original 
construction,  although  it  is  not  specifically  mentionea  in  those  bills  for  the  house 
which  are  preserved.  The  Pickman  (Derby)  house  on  Washington  Street,  Salem, 
built  in  1764,  had  one  from  the  start,  for  it  is  shown  in  a  painting  made  just  sub- 


Figure  62.     Carved  imxHllion  from  the  Hancock  house,  Boston.      1737  to  1740 
In  the  possession  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society 

sequently.  A  parapet  at  the  eaves  appears  also  in  an  old  view  of  Tryon's  Palace, 
built  1767-1770,  but  any  such  feature  did  not  become  common  in  America  until 
after  the  Revolution. 

The  dormer-window  was  widely  used  in  the  eighteenth  century,  and  underwent 
characteristic  modification.  In  many  houses,  to  be  sure,  there  were  no  dormers. 
This  was  generally  where  there  were  no  rooms  in  the  garret,  owing  usually  to  nar- 
row masses  or  low  hip-roofs,  or  where  rooms  there  could  be  lighted  from  end 
gables.  Only  in  very  few  cases,  such  as  Shirley  Hall,  where  dormers  were  kept  off 
the  front,  yet  used  elsewhere,  can  any  objection  to  them  be  inferred  on  grounds  of 
appearance.  The  most  common  form  of  dormer,  occurring  throughout  the  period, 
was  one  with  a  square-headed  window  surmounted  by  a  triangular  gable  or  pedi- 
ment. Other  forms  appear  only  during  more  restricted  times.  Thus  an  alternation 
of  triangular  and  segmental  pediments,  as  in  Coleshill  and  Thorpe  Hall  in  Eng- 
land, occurs  in  the  McPhedris,  Hancock,  Clarke  (Frankland),  and  Pickman  houses, 

90 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

all  in  New  England  before  1750.  Dormers  having  hip-roots  characterize  certain 
Southern  houses,  such  as  Westover,  and  the  Eveleigh  house  at  Charleston,  in  the 
second  quarter  of  the  century.  A  semicircular-headed  window  rising  into  the  tym- 
panum of  a  triangular  pediment  was  a  form  specially  favored  in  fine  houses  ot  the 
last  thirty  years  before  the  Revolution,'  finding  employment  in  1746  at  Shirley 
Place,  Roxbury,  and  after  1760  at  Mount  Pleasant,  Cliveden,  the  Roger  Morris 


Figure  63.      Benjamin  Pickman  house,  Essex  Street,  Salem.      1750 
From  an  old  lithograph:   "J.  C    F.  del.,  Pendleton's  Litho." 


house,  and  the  Miles  Brewton  house.  At  Mount  Pleasant  and  Cliveden,  in  the 
'sixties,  the  dormers  are  flanked  by  vertical  consoles.  Neither  a  dormer  with  a 
semicircular  roof  nor  one  with  a  Palladian  window  occurs  in  any  attested  instance 
before  the  Revolution. 

A  cupola  was  placed  on  the  roof  of  some  large  Colonial  mansions,  as  in  many 
English  houses,  beginning  with  Coleshill  and  Ashdown.    Among  minor  English  ex- 

'  Hope  Lodge,  near  Philadelphia,  ascribed  to  1723,  has  dormers  of  this  type,  otherwise  unknown  at  such  a 
date,  and  thus  possibly  later  additions. 

91 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

amples,  the  "Cupola  house"  at  Bury  St.  Edmunds,  dated  1693,^  has  an  octagonal 
one  with  tour  arched  windows  and  a  roof  semicircular  in  section.  Governor 
Hutchinson  wrote  of  a  fire  in  the  roof  of  his  house  in  1748,  "the  Lanthorne  being 
in  a  blaze."-  Existing  cupolas  in  the  colonies  which  seem  to  be  contemporary 
with  the  houses  are  those  of  Shirley  Place,  after  1746;  the  Pickman  house,  Wash- 
ington Street,  Salem,  1764;  and  the  Jeremiah  Lee  house,  Marblehead,  1768. 
Whether  that  of  Mount  Vernon  comes  from  just  before  or  just  after  the  Revolu- 
tion has  not  been  determined. 

It  is  the  detailed  treatment  ot  surfaces  and  openings  which  has  hitherto  re- 
ceived most  attention  in  studies  of  Colonial  architecture,  yet  the  task  still  remains 
of  giving  an  exact  account  ot  its  evolution.  For  the  exteriors  we  may  say,  in  gen- 
eral, that  the  development  is  toward  a  higher  and  higher  degree  of  formal  organ- 
ization. 

At  first  this  was  an  organization  merely  of  the  fvmctional  elements:  wall  surface, 
doorways,  windows,  cornice,  angles,  floor  lines — any  academic  detail  being  con- 
fined to  the  treatment  ot  these  individually.  In  the  spacing  and  size  of  openings, 
irregularity  was  more  and  more  infrequent.  At  Graeme  Park,  in  1721,  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  front,  like  that  of  the  interior,  is  not  symmetrical;  but  at  Westover 
(figure  59),  soon  atter  1726,  the  facades  are  perfectly  balanced,  in  spite  of  an  un- 
symmetrical  plan.  The  only  later  exceptions  of  importance  are  in  the  Royall  house 
and  Mount  Vernon,  both  the  product  of  remodellings.  In  the  earlier  houses  a 
development  can  be  noted  in  the  number  of  elements  elaborated.  At  Graeme  Park 
(figure  57)  all  is  of  the  utmost  plainness.  No  feature  projects  from  the  wall  sur- 
face; doors  and  windows  alike  have  merely  an  architrave  for  frame,  even  the  cor- 
nice is  boxed  in  the  simplest  manner.  At  Stenton  (figure  60),  1728,  the  cornice 
is  enriched  with  block  mociillions  and  the  internal  divisions  ot  the  house  are 
marked  by  projecting  bands.  At  Westover,  for  perhaps  the  first  time,  the  doorway 
is  framed  with  pilasters.  In  the  east  facade  of  the  Royall  house  (figure  61),  1733- 
1737,  the  windows  likewise  have  a  rich  casing,  including  a  cornice,  and  the  angles 
are  adorned  with  quoins.  The  Hancock  house  (figure  34),  1737-1740,  has  door  and 
windows  sumptuously  framed  and  the  modillions  of  the  cornice  are  carved  (figure 
62).     So  much  elaboration  ot  the  openings,  however,  remained  exceptional. 

It  was  more  common  for  the  wall  surface  itself  to  be  enriched  by  groovings  or 
"rustication."  This  was  true  not  merely  in  masonry  but  imitatively  in  wood. 
Projecting  quoins  at  the  angles  are  found  earliest  in  Colonel  Robert  Brewton's 

^  B.  Oliver,  "Old  Houses  of  East  Anglia"  (igii). 

-P.  O.  Hutchinson,  "Diary  and  Letters  of  Thomas  Hutchinson,"  vol.  i  (1884),  p.  54. 

92 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

house  in  Charleston,  before  1733,  in  the  east  front  of  the  Royall  house,  1 733-1737? 
in  the  Hancock  house,  1737,  and  in  the  Roger  Morris  house — the  Last  two  of 
actual  masonry,  the  other  of  brick  faced  with  wood.  Dated  examples  ot  rustica- 
tion over  the  whole  surface  are,  in  masonry,  the  central  pavilion  ot  Mount  Airy, 
1758;  in  wood,  the  west  front  of  the  Royall  house,  probably  before  1750,  the  Pick- 


.".■■  H'  Fr^iit!:  Cousitis 


Figure  64.     Jeremiah  Lee  house,  Marblehead,  Massachusetts.     4gfiS 


man  (figure  G^  and  Orne  houses,  Essex  Street,  Salem,  1750  and  1761,  the  Jeremiah 
Lee  house,  Marblehead  (figure  64),  1768,  and  the  entrance  front  of  Mount  Vernon, 
dating  in  its  present  form  from  about  1778.^ 

The  most  pretentious  houses,  as  time  went  on,  sought  distinction  rather  by 
treatment  with  elements  primarily  formal  in  their  very  nature — "pavilions,"  pilas- 
ters, and  porticos. 

The  first  academic  house  in  the  colonies  to  have  a  projecting  central  "pavilion," 
was  Rosewell  (figure  65),  before  1730,  antedating  any  other  by  a  score  ol  years.    At 

'  See  letter  of  Lund  Washington  quoted  by  P.  Wilstach,  "Mount  Vernon"  (1916),  p.  141. 

93 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Rosewell  the  pavilions,  front  and  rear,  are  masses  deep  enough  to  affect  the  spaces  of 
the  interior,  but  a  glance  at  the  plan  reveals  that  they  were  adopted  for  plastic  exterior 
effect.  This  is  obviously  the  case  with  the  shallow  central  pavilions  which  appeared 
frequently  after  1750:  for  instance,  in  the  Pickman,  John  Vassall  (figure  68),  and 
Apthorp  houses  in  Massachusetts;  in  Mount  Pleasant  and  Cliveden  at  Philadelphia; 
in  the  Chase  house  at  Annapolis;  in  Mount  Airy  and  Tryon's  Palace  in  the  South. 


h'roin  a  fholog^-oph  by  H.  P.  Coo/: 

Figure  65.     Rosewell,  Gloucester  Count}',  Virginia.      Before  1730 


Greater  academic  splendor  was  obtained  by  the  adornment  of  walls  and  pa- 
vilions by  an  "order."  But  two  instances  occur  of  an  order  embracing  two  stories 
above  a  story  treated  as  a  high  architectural  basement:  the  Matthew  Cozzens,  or 
Dudley  house  near  Newport,  built  in  the  'fifties  or  early  'sixties,^  and  Tryon's  Pal- 
ace,- 1 767-1 770.  The  favorite  scheme  was  the  "colossal  order"  rising  from  ground 
or  pedestal  to  the  main  cornice.  This  first  appeared  in  the  Pinckney  house  in  Col- 
leton Square,  Charleston  (figure  66),  1746,  and  in  Shirley  Place,  Roxbury  (figure 
67),  built  following  that  year.  In  Shirley  Place,  in  the  west  fapacie  of  the  Royall 
house,  before  1750,  in  the  John  Vassall  and  Apthorp  houses  in  Cambridge,  1758 

'  Peterson's  "History  of  Rhode  Island"  (1853),  p.  149,  and  notes  of  Ogden  Codman. 
^  J.  Lossing,  "Field  Book  of  the  Revolution,"  vol.  2  (1852),  p.  570,  note. 

94 


Cofyrr\-^tt.  IQIr,  f-y  J.  B.  Li^fincctt  Cc. 

Figure  66.     Charles  Pinckney  house,  Colleton  Square,  Charleston.      1745  to  1746 
From  Smith:  DivelUng  Houses  of  Charleston 


Figure  67.     Shirley  Place,  Roxbury,  Massachusetts.     After  1746 
Courtesy  of  William  Sumner  Appleton 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

and  soon  after,  the  order  consists  of  pilasters,  each  with  an  individual  fragment  of 
architrave  and  frieze,  and  perhaps  also  of  pedestal.  This  was  the  way  the  orders 
were  generally  figured  in  the  popular  handbooks,  by  a  single  column  with  entabla- 
ture and  pedestal  mitred  back  at  either  side.  Their  use  in  this  form  was  not  con- 
fined to  the  colonies:  it  may  be  seen  even  in  such  magnificent  English  houses  as 
Stoneleigh  Abbey  (figure  69),  to  the  central  block  of  which  the  Royall  facade  is 


Figure  68.     John  Vassall  (Longfellow)  house,  Cambridge.     I7S9 


closely  akin.  It  had  the  practical  advantage  of  allowing  more  height  tor  the  win- 
dows of  the  upper  story.  This  advantage  was  foregone  in  the  central  pavilion  of 
the  Pinckney  house,  however,  as  well  as  in  the  Apthorpe  house  in  New  York, 
ascribed  to  1767,^  where  a  full  entablature  completely  encircles  the  house. 

In  the  lateral  arrangement  of  columnar  elements  the  earliest  examples  were 
among  the  most  ambitious.  The  Pinckney  house  has  four  pilasters  forming  a  cen- 
tral frontispiece  with  a  pediment,  the  front  of  Shirley  Place  has  pilasters  at  every 
bay,  with  those  of  the  end  bays  coupled,  constituting  end  pavilions.     In  contrast 

'  "Memorial  History  of  New  York,"  vol.  2  (1892),  p.  432,  note. 

96 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

with  these,  the  Royall  house  has  merely  a  single  pilaster  at  either  end,  the  Vassall 
and  Apthorp  houses,  one  at  each  end  and  one  at  either  side  of  the  projecting  cen- 
tral pavilion.  x-\t  Shirley  Place,  moreover,  the  end  pilasters  turn  the  corners  ot  the 
building,  whereas  in  the  Royall,  \'assall,  and  Apthorp  houses  they  are  merely  ap- 
plied against  the  front  as  classical  trophies.  In  the  Hooper  house,  Danvers, 
Massachusetts  (figure  70),  and  in  the  country-house  of  William  Browne  in  Beverly,^ 
a  pair  of  engaged  columns  replace  pilasters  in  flanking  the  central  bay,  and  in  the 


Figure  69.     Stoneleigh  Abbey,  Warwickshire 


Apthorpe  house  in  New  York  (figure  71),  most  architectonic  of  the  group,  pilasters 
mark  each  bay  of  the  ends  while  engaged  columns  frame  the  recessed  loggia  of  the 
front. 

The  extreme  of  academism  everywhere  involved  use  of  the  portico,  with  col- 
umns standing  free.  A  small,  tabernacle-like  portico  of  two  columns  a  single  story 
in  height  had  sheltered  the  door  of  the  Sergeant  house  as  early  as  1679,  and  similar 
ones,  more  correct  in  detail,  were  again  the  chief  ornaments  ot  such  splendid  houses 
as  the  Orne  house,  Salem,  176 1,  and  the  Jeremiah  Lee  house,  Marblehead,  1768. 

'  Dr.  Andrew  Hamilton,  who  visited  it  in  1744,  says  "the  porch  is  supported  by  pillars  of  the  Ionic  order." 
"Itinerarium"  (1907),  p.  147.  The  foundations,  of  which  a  plan  is  published  in  Historical  Collections  oj  the 
Essex  Institute,  vol.  31  (1895),  p.  212,  seem  to  show  that  these  pillars  must  have  been  engaged  columns. 

97 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

At  Gunston  there  is  a  portico  of  four  small  columns,  with  an  arch  forming  a  Palla- 
dian  motive,  although  this  porch  may  be  later  than  the  house  itself.  The  general 
unfamiliarity  of  wide  low  porches,  even  at  the  eve  of  the  Revolution,  is  shown  by 
some  amusing  references  in  the  correspondence  of  the  painter  Copley  with  Henry 


Front  a  photograph  by  Frank  Coustus 

Figure  70.     Hooper  house,  Danvers,  Massachusetts 

Pelham,^  who  was  looking  after  the  erection  ot  Copley's  house  in  Boston.      Copley 
writes  trom  New  York,  July  14,  1771: 

Should  I  not  add  Wings  I  shall  add  a  peazer  when  T  return,  which  is  much  practiced 
here,  and  is  very  beautiful  and  convenient. 

Pelham  replied: 

I  dont  comprehend  what  you  mean  bv  a  peazer.     Explain  that  in  your  next, 
whereupon  Copley  responded: 

You  say  you  dont  know  what  I  mean  by  a  Peaza.     I  will  tell  you  than,     it  is  exactly 

'  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  vol.  71  (1914),  pp.  131-137.      Cople>-'s  plan  and  eleva- 
tion are  reproduced,  facing  p.  136. 

98 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

such  a  thing  us  the  cover  over  the  pump  in  your  Yard,  suppose  no  enclosure  for  Poultry 
their,  and  J  or  4  Posts  added  to  support  the  front  of  the  Roof,  a  good  floor  at  bottum,  and 
from  post  to  post  a  Chinese  enclosure  about  three  feet  high,  these  posts  are  Scantlings 
of  6  by  4  inches  Diameter,  the  Broad  side  to  the  front,  with  only  a  little  moulding  round 
the  top  in  a  neat  plain  manner,     some  have  Collumns  but  very  few,  and  the  top  is  gen- 


Figure  71.     Apthorpe  house,  New  York  City 

erally  Plasterd,  but  I  think  if  the  top  was  sealed  with  neat  plained  Boards  I  should  like  it 
as  well,  these  Peazas  are  so  cool  in  Sumer  and  in  \Yinter  break  off  the  storms  so  much 
that  I  think  I  should  not  be  able  to  like  an  house  without.  ...  I  have  drawn  them  in 
the  Plan. 

Copley's  elevation  shows  one-story  "peazas"  at  the  sides  like  those  now  forming 
part  of  the  John  Vassall  (Longfellow)  house. 

A  two-storied  portico  of  superposed  orders,  four  columns  in  width,  won  for 
Drayton  Hall  in  1758  the  appellation  of  a  "Palace."^  Here  the  upper  columns 
stand  on  pedestals.  In  the  Miles  Brewton  house  in  Charleston,  near  by,  in  1765- 
1769,  the  same  general  scheme  was  repeated  with  far  greater  elegance:  the  width 

^  South  Carolina  Gazette,  December  22,   1758,  quoted  by  H.  A.  M.  Smith  in  S.   C.  Historical  Magazine, 
vol.  20  (1919),  p.  93. 

99 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

is  no  longer  sprawling,  the  pedestals  are  omitted.  In  Jefferson's  design  for  Mon- 
ticello  (figure  72),  1771,  finally,  the  scheme — a  favorite  one  with  Palladio  (figure 
73) — was  reproduced  with  strict  Palladian  accuracy  both  in  proportions  and  in  de- 
tail. The  upper  order  seems  never  actually  to  have  come  to  execution.^  Not  dis- 
similar was  the  portico  of  Lansdowne,  built  1773-1777,  and  destroyed  about  1866.^ 
The  "colossal  portico,"  of  columns  rising  through  the  full  height  of  the  build- 


Ct'p\rit,'!tt,  ItiO,  by  Lhi'-.t  .1 


Figure  72.     Design  for  Monticelln.     Thomas  JefFerson.      177 1 
From  the  original  drawing  in  the  CooHdge  collection 

ing,  is  popularly  thought  of  as  specially  characteristic  of  the  Colonial  house,  but  it 
will  be  found  that  only  a  single  example  can  be  proved  to  be  prior  to  the  Revolu- 
tion. In  many  instances  such  a  portico  attached  to  a  pre-Revolutionary  house  is 
a  later  addition.  Thus  the  one  at  Whitehall  has  no  relation  to  the  mouldings  of 
the  main  cornice  of  the  house,  which  it  intersects  awkwardly;  the  one  at  the  Wood- 
lands, Philadelphia,  would  seem  to  date  from  the  remodelling  of  1788.  Mrs.  Mary 
Newton  Stannard,  who  corrects  the  popular  notion,  cites  Mount  Vernon,  Sabine 


'  Kimball,  "Thomas  JefFerson,  Architect"  (1916),  p.  29. 

-  View  and  discussion  in  T.  Westcott,  "The  Historic  Mansions  of  Philadelphia"  (1877),  p.  334. 

100 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 


Hall,  and  Nomini  Hall  as  among  the  few  examples.'  The  portico  at  Mount  A'ernon, 
however,  if  our  reasoning  in  the  discussion  of  this  house  is  correct,  dates  trom  be- 
tween 1/86  and  1787;  the  one  at  Sabine  Hall  seems  also  to  be  a  later  addition. 
The  description  of  Nomini  Hall  by  Philip  Fithian,  on  which  she  depends,  does  not 
warrant  the  conclusion,  the  "Portico"  which  he  mentions  being  evidently  an  en- 
closed porch  with  windows."  The  sole  authentic  colossal  portico  from  before  the 
Revolution  seems  to  be  that  of  the  Roger 
Morris  or  Jumel  house  in  New  York  City 
(figure  74),  which  is  almost  certainly  a  part 
of  the  original  fabric  built  in  1765. 

The  treatment  of  single  elements  will 
be  discussed  individually  only  in  the  case 
of  those  which  show  an  unmistakable  evo- 
lution. Most  elaborate  and  important  of 
these  is  the  doorway,  of  which  the  open- 
ing, its  filling,  and  its  enframement  all  de- 
serve analysis. 

Doorways  having  a  square-headed 
opening  occur  throughout  the  Colonial 
period,  generally  with  a  lintel,  at  least  in 
appearance.  The  square-headed  opening 
showing  a  structural  flat  arch  is  restricted 
to  the  first  half  of  the  century,  appearing 
in  the  Mulberry,  Stratford,  the  Hancock 
house,  and  Carter's  Grove.  The  segmental 
arch  is  confined  to  much  the  same  period : 
in  Graeme  Park,  1721,  Stenton,  1728  (fig- 
ure 75),  and  Whitby,  1754.    On  the  other 

hand,  a  semicircular  arch  does  not  appear  until  after  1756:  in  the  side  doorway  at 
Woodford,  in  the  Izard  house,  Charleston,  in  Gunston,  Mount  Pleasant,  and  White- 
hall, in  the  Chase  house  at  Annapolis,  and  others  on  the  eve  of  the  Revolution. 
There  is  but  a  single  undoubtedly  authentic  example,  itself  late,  of  an  elliptical 
arched  door  head  before  the  Revolution,  that  of  the  Miles  Brewton  house  in  Charles- 
ton, built  1765-1769.^  The  familiar  elliptical  heads  are  otherwise  entirely  from 
Republican  days. 

'  "Colonial  Virginia"  (1917),  pp.  68-69.  '  "Journal  of  Philip  Fithian"  (1900),  p.  129. 

^  The  date  of  the  Tristram  Dalton  house  in  Ne\vhur\port  is  wholl\'  uncertain.     A.  Hale,  "Old  Newbury- 
port  Houses"  (1912),  p.  28. 

lOI 


Figure  73.     Design  from  Palladio,  Book  II 
plate  61 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

The  most  significant  difference  within  the  bounds  of  the  opening  lay  in  the 
method  of  giving  light  to  the  hall  at  this  point.  In  early  houses  a  rectangular 
transom  here  was  not  uncommon:  witness  Graeme  Park,  Stenton,  Rosewell,  West- 
over,  the  Ayrault  house  at  Newport,  and  the  Daniel  Pastorius  house  at  German- 
town,  all  between  1721  and  1748.  A  number  of  doorways  about  1760  have  lights 
in  the  upper  panels  of  the  doors  themselves:  those  of  the  Williams  house,  Deerfield, 
as  remodelled  in  1756,  the  Ebenezer  Grant  house,  East  Windsor,  the  John  A'assall 


Figure  74.     Roger  Morris  (Jumel)  house.  New  York  City.      lybi^ 

and  x-^pthorp  houses  in  Cambridge.  Meanwhile,  in  the  arched  door  heads  coming 
into  use  after  1757,  semicircular  transoms  or  fanlights  now  first  appeared,  super- 
seding both  the  older  forms.  The  elliptical  arch  of  the  Miles  Brewton  house  also 
has  its  fanlight.  No  instance  of  side-lights,  included  within  the  main  door  opening, 
exists  before  the  Revolution,  although  narrow  windows  at  either  side  are  com- 
bined with  the  door  in  an  inclusive  architectural  motive  in  the  Schuyler  and  Chase 
houses,  from  the  late  'sixties,  and  others.  Wooden  bars  were  the  rule  in  transoms 
prior  to  the  War  of  Independence. 

The  enframement  of  doorways  was  at  first  merely  an  architrave,  as  in  Tucka- 
hoe,   the  Mulberry,   Graeme   Park,   and   Stenton    (figure   75),    all   by    1728,   and 

102 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

examples  of  this  can  be  found  in  masonry  houses  down  to  the  time  of  Whitby, 
I7<:4.  Certain  pretentious  houses  of  this  period  had  rusticated  blocks  instead  of 
an  architrave,  notably  Shirley  Place,  after  1746,  with  its  heavy  key-blocks.     From 


/•holo^rn/i/t  by  Fr.Dtk  Cousins 

Figure  75.     The  doorway  at  Stenton.      1728 


about  1725,  however,  it  had  become  almost  universal  to  have  a  more  elaborate 
crown,  with  frieze  and  cornice  in  some  form,  generally  supported  by  either  con- 
soles or  an  order.  The  two  schemes  appear  almost  simultaneously,  consoles  at 
Rosewell,  pilasters  at  Westover,  if  these  belong  to  the  original  work.     Both  occur 

103 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

in  the  North  in  the  east  doorway  of  the  Royall  house  (figure  6i),  the  console  serv- 
ing as  key-block.^  Here,  as  later  in  the  Hancock  house  and  others,  the  order  was 
relieved  against  a  rusticated  background.  Widely  overhanging  brackets  are  rare 
in  American  houses,  the  two  dated  examples  being  in  the  doorway  of  the  Hancock 
house,  where  they  support  a  balcony,  and  that  of  the  Ayrault  house,  where  they 
carry  a  hemispherical  hood.  Both  are  from  the  late  'thirties.  English  examples 
are  numerous;  one  hood  not  dissimilar  bears  the  date  1703.-  Engaged  columns, 
bolder  in  relief,  were  first  adopted  in  the  Hancock  doorway  (figure  34),  and  after 
1750  they  rivalled  the  pilasters  in  frequency  of  use  (figure  76).  With  the  addition 
of  free-standing  columns  the  door  entramement  became  the  portico.  Where  the 
doorway  involved  an  order  there  was  generally  a  pediment,  and  this  was  ordinarily 
triangular.  The  segmental  pediment  appears  in  doorways  of  the  middle  of  the 
century,  however,  in  the  entrance  front  ot  Westover  after  1726  (1749?)  and  the 
west  front  of  the  Royall  house  before  1750.^  The  scroll  pediment  also — a  remin- 
iscence of  Wren's  baroque  freedom — appeared  over  the  garden  door  ot  Westover 
and  the  balcony  door  ot  the  Hancock  house.  Under  the  influence  ot  the  great 
Boston  mansion,  for  which  the  trim  had  been  cut  in  Middletown,  it  lingered  in 
the  Connecticut  Valley  as  a  dialect  form  beyond  the  middle  of  the  century.  The 
Col  ton  house  at  Longmeadow  (1754),  the  Williams  door  at  Deerfield  (1756),  and 
the  Grant  house  at  East  Windsor  (1757)  illustrate  this,  as  well  as  the  fine  un- 
dated example  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum  (figure  77). 

Window  treatment  followed  lines  of  development  essentially  similar,  but  with 
its  own  special  points  of  significance.  Thus  the  segmental  arch  was  used  through 
the  same  period  as  in  doors,  in  the  McPhedris  house,  Graeme  Park,  Stenton,  Rose- 
well,  Westover,  and  Carter's  Grove,  ranging  from  1720  to  1751.  The  proportions 
of  the  openings,  however,  varied  with  time  in  a  way  which  is  not  true  ot  the  door 
openings.  Those  of  the  houses  down  to  1732  are  notably  tall  in  proportion,  as  much 
as  2^4  :  I  at  Graeme  Park.  Such  tall  windows  recur  later  only  in  the  isolated  in- 
stance of  Gunston  Hall,  1758. 

The  size  of  glass  used  in  window-panes  showed  a  general  increase  as  the  cen- 
tury progressed,  but  this  increase  was  not  regular  and  unitorm  tor  all  houses  ot  a 
given  time.  Thus  whereas  in  1737  Thomas  Hancock,  countermanding  a  previous 
order,  doubtless  for  smaller  panes,  ordered  glass  iij!^  by  18  inches  and  S}4  by  12 

'  Side  consoles  exist  in  the  door  of  the  Dummer  house,  probably  built  between  1712  and  1716,  which 
closely  follows  the  doorway  on  p.  175  of  Richards'  "Palladio." 

-J.  Belcher  and  Macartney:  "Later  Renaissance  Architecture  in  England,"  vol.  2  (1901),  pi.   II. 

'  The  fine  similar  doorway  of  the  McPhedris  house,  Portsmouth,  seems,  from  the  way  the  belt  course  has 
been  cut  away  for  it,  to  be  somewhat  later  than  the  house  itself. 

104 


Figure  76.     The  doorway  at  Cliveden.     After  1763 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

inches  tor  his  palatial  house/  the  panes  of  the  Ayrault  house  in  Newport,  the  same 
year,  were  to  be  7  by  9,^  and  in  a  town  ten  miles  from  Boston  in  1770  panes  10  by 
14  excited  the  admiration  and  curiosity  of  the  neighborhood.^  The  following  table 
will  show  the  prevailing  tendency: 

1721     Graeme  Park 8      x  \2}4 

1737     Ayrault  house,  Newport 7      x    9 

I7T7     .Hancock  house,  Boston 8>^  x  1 2 

iiKx  18 

1746     Pinckney  house,  Charleston 9      x  1 1 

Before  jJ7£o     Royall  house,  west  front 8       xio 

1748     Van  Cortlandt  house.  Lower  Yonkers 9      xii 

After     i7(;6     Woodford 10      xi2 

1758     Gunston  Hall 12      x  18 

i_2^     John  Vassal!  house 12      x  1 6 

After     1^62      Mount  Pleasant 9      x  12 

After     i^~6j     Cliveden , 9      x  12 

Whitehall 13 J<  x  20 

j^^     Roger  Morris  house 12      x  1 6 

1769-1771      Chase  house,  Annapolis 11       x  iS 

1770     Quincy  house,  Braintree 10      x  14 

1771-1775     Monticello 12      xi2 

The  number  of  panes  tended,  of  course,  to  vary  inversely  with  their  size,  eighteen 
or  twenty-four  panes  being  generally  characteristic  of  earlier  or  less  pretentious 
houses,  twelve  panes  the  common  number  in  the  finer  and  later  dwellings. 
For  the  chief  windows,  twelve  lights  were  first  used  in  the  'thirties,  and  they  had 
become  common  by  the  'fifties  in  the  better  houses,  although  at  Philadelphia  one 
finds  Whitby,  Woodford,  Mount  Pleasant,  and  Cliveden  with  twenty-four,  the  last 
after  1763.  Throughout  the  Colonial  period  the  sash  bars  remained  heavy,  being 
ordinarily  1J4  to  1J2  inches  in  width. 

Windows  generally  had  a  full  architrave  for  casing,  but  in  masonry  houses 
this  was  ordinarily  of  wood  and  put  in  shelter  between  the  masonry  jambs.  In 
certain  instances  after  1750,  however,  it  was  placed  with  greater  regard  for  classi- 
cal correctness,  projecting  in  front  of  the  plane  of  the  wall.  Thus  at  \Vhitby,  1754, 
the  tower  window  has  its  wooden  casing  on  the  face  of  the  wall;  at  Mount  Airy, 
1758,  there  are  projecting  architraves  of  cut  stone;  at  Gunston  and  Whitehall  the 

'Arthur  Gilman,  "Thomas  Hancock,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  vol.  II  (1863),  p.  701. 
-  G.  C.  Mason,  Jr.,  in  American  Architect,  vol.  10  (1881),  p.  83. 
^"Memoirs  of  Eliza  S.  M.  Quincy"  (1861),  p.  91. 

106 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

windows  of  the  hall  are  distinguished  from  the  others  by  projecting  architraves, 
which  were  used  throughout  at  Monticello  on  the  eve  ot  the  Revolution.  In  some 
of  these  instances  anci  also  occasionally  in  wooden  houses  the  winciow  was  enriched 


Figure  77.     Doorway  from  Westfield,  Massachusetts 
In  the  Metropolitan  Museum 

by  a  cornice,  or  a  frieze  and  cornice.  The  earliest  case  is  in  the  east  front  ot  the 
Royall  house,  as  early  as  1737  (figure  61).  Later  examples  remained  always  some- 
what exceptional,  as  was  the  pedimented  window,  which  first  appeared  in  the  west 
front  of  the  Royall  house,  probably  before  1750.  Drayton  Hall  has  pilasters  also. 
No  house  with  its  ordinary  windows  having  semicircular  arches  was  built  in  the 

107 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

colonies  before  the  Revolution,  but  a  single  long  arched  window  was  often  placed 
over  the  stair  landing.  There  is  such  a  one  in  the  McPhedris  house  in  the  North 
and  in  Rosewell  in  the  South,  both  before  1730,  and  others  may  be  found  down 
to  the  close  of  the  period,  although  they  tended  to  give  way  to  the  Palladian 
motive. 

The  "Venetian"  or  "Palladian"  window,  having  a  central  arch  rising  above 
rectangular  side  openings,  made  its  appearance  in  the  colonies  shortly  before  1750 
as  a  central  feature  of  the  facades,  especially  as  a  stair  window.  One  is  mentioned 
in  the  specifications  of  the  Pinckney  house  in  Colleton  Square,  Charleston,  dated 
1746.^  Other  Colonial  examples  are  at  Shirley  Place,  Woodford,  Mount  Airy,  and 
Mount  Pleasant  (figure  39),  in  the  Brewton  house  at  Charleston  and  the  Chase 


Figure  78.     Corinthian  capitals  from  the  Hancock  house,  Boston.      1737  to  1746 
Preserved  by  the  Essex  Institute  and  reproduced  by  its  courtesy 


house  at  Annapolis.  In  the  Brewton  house  the  central  arch  is  doubled,  and  in  the 
Chase  house,  latest  of  all,  a  large  blank  arch  embraces  the  whole  after  a  fashion 
then  being  adopted  in  England. 

Outside  window-shutters  or  blinds  are  common  features  among  Colonial  houses, 
although  an  equal  number  of  houses  may  be  found  without  them.  No  general  rule 
may  be  framed  regarding  their  presence,  which  is  not  even  dependent  on  the  ab- 
sence of  inside  shutters.  The  Van  Cortlandt  and  John  Vassall  houses,  among  others, 
have  both.  Whether  all  the  shutters  are  contemporary  with  the  houses  Is  uncer- 
tain, but  in  the  case  of  the  Schuyler  house,  Albany,  at  least,  we  have  bills  of  1761 
for  fifteen  pairs  of  "outside  shutters."-  Panelled  outside  shutters  were  practically 
confined  to  the  Middle  Colonies.    The  blinds  with  louvres  used  elsewhere  in  Colo- 

^  Smith,  "DweUing  Houses  of  Charleston,"  p.  368.         -  G.  Schuyler.  "The  Schuyler  Mansion,"  p.  6. 

108 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

nial  times,  and  indeed  long  after,  generally  had  large  slats  and  no  cross-bar.    Mov- 
able slats  were  not  introduced  until  later. 

The  chimneys  were  slow  to  depart  from  the  earlier  tradition  ot  elaboration  in 
plan.  Thus  at  Tuckahoe,  Graeme  Park,  and  Rosewell,  all  before  1730,  the  chim- 
neys are  T-shaped;  this  form  occurs  in  one  of  the  chimneys  of  the  Hancock  house. 


Figure  79.     The  drawing-room,  Graeme  Park 

1737,  and  even  in  one  of  those  of  the  Van  Cortlandt  house,  Lower  Yonkers,  1748. 
Slender  pilaster-like  strips  mark  the  ends  of  one  broad  face  of  the  chimneys  at 
Tuckahoe  and  in  the  McPhedris  house,  Portsmouth.  Early  chimneys  of  merely 
rectangular  form  exist,  however,  at  the  Mulberry  and  at  Stenton,  and  they  were 
normal  after  1730,  although  an  isolated  instance  of  a  pilaster  strip  occurs  in  such 
a  fine  house  as  Cliveden  as  late  as  1763.  The  variety  of  forms  of  the  chimney-cap 
between  about  1730  and  the  Revolution  are  not  significant  of  date.  One  having 
the  profile  of  a  small  classic  cornice,  for  instance,  is  found  in  a  number  of  preten- 
tious houses  from  Rosewell  to  Monticello,  while  others  have  but  a  simple  plinth. 

109 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

For  exterior  balustrades,  turned  balusters  of  ordinary  academic  profile  were 
customary.  The  posts  in  early  examples  like  those  of  the  McPhedris  and  Hancock 
houses  were  likewise  turned,  and  projected  above  the  rail  in  a  ball  or  knob. 
This  style  was  retained  in  the  John  Vassall  house,  ij^g.  In  the  balcony  of  the 
Hancock  house  both  balusters  and  posts  have  spiral  turning  like  that  of  the  stair 
rails  inside.  At  Shirley  Hall,  after  1746,  in  the  Pickman  house,  Essex  Street,  Salem, 
and  at  Mount  Pleasant  and  Lansdowne,  the  posts  were  square  dies  like  those  of  a 
balustrade  of  stone.  After  1756  railings  of  "Chinese  lattice" — slender  bars  form- 
ing patterns  in  the  panels — made  their  appearance  at  Woodford,  the  Schuyler, 
Timothy  Orne,  and  Roger  Morris  houses.  Jefferson  made  drawings  of  Chinese  lat- 
tice about  1771.^     It  continued  in  use  after  the  Revolution. 

The  "orders"  preferred  in  Colonial  exteriors  were  the  Tuscan  or  Doric  and  the 
Ionic — simpler  ot  execution  than  the  Corinthian.,  In  the  houses  having  the 
"colossal  order,"  Doric  is  used  in  Shirley  Hall,  the  Royall  and  Morris  houses, 
Ionic  in  the  other  examples.  In  all  the  superposed  porticos,  also,  it  was  the  Doric 
and  the  Ionic  which  were  employed.  In  the  enframement  of  doorways,  on  a  smaller 
scale,  the  Corinthian  does  appear;  very  well  understood  at  Westover  and  in  the 
Hancock  and  McPhedris  houses,  all  before  i7';o  (figure  78);  travestied  quaintly  in 
vernacular  Connecticut  River  houses  considerably  after  that  date  (figure  77). 
Among  the  Ionic  capitals  the  angular  type,  with  four  pairs  of  scrolls  placed 
diagonally — first  codified  in  modern  times  by  Scamozzi — was  almost  universal. 
Strangely  enough,  an  example  of  the  "antique"  form  with  volutes  parallel  to  the 
face  occurs,  crudely  executed,  in  one  of  the  Connecticut  River  doorways,  that  of 
the  Charles  Churchill  house  at  Wethersfield.  In  the  design  for  the  portico  at 
Monticello,  1771,  its  adoption  was  a  conscious  affirmation  of  Palladian  standards. 

Execution  in  wood  in  the  colonies  is  generally  supposed  to  have  given  the 
orders  more  slender  proportions  and  the  detail  a  special  delicacy.  This  idea,  an 
outgrowth  of  nineteenth-century  functional  theory,  developed  at  a  time  when  at- 
tention was  focussed  chiefly  on  the  Colonial  buildings  of  New  England,  and  when 
the  later  history  of  English  architecture  was  little  known.  Outside  New  England, 
however,  as  we  have  seen,  the  great  majority  of  the  finest  Colonial  houses  are  ot 
masonry,  and  in  a  number  of  these  even  the  doorways  and  other  details  are  ot 
brick  and  stone.  On  the  other  hand,  many  Georgian  houses  in  England  have  door- 
ways and  cornices  ot  wood.  In  neither  country  are  the  forms  and  proportions  of 
wooden  details  in  general  modified  in  the  direction  of  slenderness  prior  to  the  ad- 
vent of  the  Adam  style.    The  Doric  pilasters  of  the  west  front  of  the  Royall  house, 

^  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  p.  130. 
IIO 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

fifteen  diameters  in  height,  and  the  columns  of  the  Roger  Morris  portico,  some  thir- 
teen diameters  tall,  are  quite  exceptional.  It  is  just  as  easy  to  find  examples  ot  less 
than  the  normal  academic  proportions,  which  in  general  were  closely  followed.  The 
attenuation  of  classic  forms  by  the  Adams,  based  on  Pompeian  suggestions,  which 
had  its  beginnings  only  about  1760,  appeared  in  the  popular  handbooks  after  1780, 


Figure  80.     Drawing-room  of  the  Miles  Brewton  house,  Charleston.     1765  to  1769 

and  in  America  thus  after  the  Revolution.  The  wide-spread  change  of  proportions, 
which  then  first  took  place,  was  English  in  its  origin  and  independent  of  material. 

In  the  Colonial  interiors  of  the  eighteenth  century,  as  in  the  houses  as  a  whole, 
a  formal  academic  treatment  took  the  place  of  the  direct  revelation  of  structural 
elements.  As  we  have  seen,  however,  this  formal  composition  did  not  extend  at  first 
or  in  any  high  degree  to  the  organization  of  the  interior  spaces  themselv^es,  but  was 
largely  confined  to  the  wall  surfaces  and  to  the  elaboration  of  individual  elements 
such  as  the  doorways,  the  window  casings,  the  ceilings,  and  especially  the  chimney- 
pieces  and  staircases. 

The  instrumentalities  of  change  and  continued  evolution  were  largely  the  same 

III 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

as  for  the  plan  and  exterior — that  is  to  say,  chiefly  the  architectural  publications 
and  builders'  handbooks.  After  1700  and  still  more  after  1725,  these  became  rich 
in  details  of  cornices,  doorways,  chimneypieces,  and  stairs,  as  well  as  consoles,  car- 
touches, and  other  ornaments,  anci  it  is  often  easily  possible,  as  we  shall  see,  to 
identify  the  very  book  from  which  the  forms  used  in  a  given  house  were  derived. 
In  the  course  of  the  century,  and  even  in  competing  works  of  the  same  date,  there 


F'V'i  rt  /•hott'gritfit  hy  //.  P.  CDi>;i- 

Figure  81.     The  stairs  at  Westover 

are  marked  differences  in  the  character  of  the  forms  exemplified  and  recommended. 
While  the  English  Palladianism  of  Lord  Burlington  tended  to  banish  from  the  ex- 
terior the  baroque  forms  used  by  Wren,  such  as  scroll  pediments  and  broken  forms 
generally,  for  the  interior  these  persisted  in  company  with  the  novel  and  florid 
rocaille  ornamentation  of  Louis  XV. 

The  assertion  used  often  to  be  made  that  the  interior  finish,  as  well  as  the 
bricks,  of  the  old  mansions  was  imported.^   We  are  not  aware,  however,  of  authen- 

'  Earliest  in  the  account  of  Westover  in  William  Dunlap's   "History  of  the  Atts  of  Design  in  the  United 
States"  (1834),  voL  i,  pp.  286  fF. 

112 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

tic  instances  of  this  except  in  the  case  of  paper-hangings,  hardware,  and  marble 
fireplace  facings  and  mantels.  It  is  true  that  Thomas  Hancock  wrote  from  his 
new  house  to  England,  March  22,  1739-40:  "I  pray  the  favor  of  you  Enquire 
what  a  pr.  of  Capitolls  will  cost  me  to  be  carved  in  London  ot  the  Corinthian 
Order,  iGyi  Inches  One  Way  and  9  y"  Other — to  be  well  done,"'  but  we  do  not 
know  that  he  ordered  them.     On  the  contrary,  we  learn  from  the  bills  of  \Yilliam 


Figure  82.     The  dining-room,  Monticello.     Thomas  Jefferson.      1771  to  1775 


More  against  Hancock  that  when  the  lower  room  and  the  chamber  were  wain- 
scoted in  1745,  More  made  the  two  "pare  of  pilasters"  of  the  Corinthian  order.' 
Even  paper-hangings  began  to  be  manufactured  in  the  colonies  by  1763.^  Domes- 
tic marble  remained  unused  here  until  some  time  after  the  Revolution,  and  the 
marble  used  in  chimneypieces  was  of  foreign  varieties.     In  the  case  of  Tryon's 

'  Arthur  Gilman,  "The  Hancock  House,"  Allanlic  Monlhly,  vol.  ii  (1863),  p.  702. 

-  Hancock  MSS.,  Boston  Public  Library.    The  pilasters  are  shown  in  a  photograph  in  the  Hancock  Collec- 
tion at  the  Old  State  House,  Boston. 

'  Bishop,  "American  Manufactures,"  vol.  I  (1861),  p.  209. 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Palace,  we  learn  expressly  from  a  letter  of  1769  that  besides  window-sash  and  lead 
for  roofing,  "four  of  the  principal  chimney  pieces  are  arrived  also  from  London, 
with  the  hinges,  locks,  and  other  articles  for  the  finishing  this  much  admired  struc- 
ture."^   The  one  described  is  of  marble. 

In  any  attempt  to  trace  the  development  of  interior  features  there  is  special 
difficulty  due  to  the  frequency  of  later  insertions  and  remodellings.    Where  addi- 


Figure  83.     Northeast  room  at  Tuckahoe.      Before  1730.     Mantel,  post-Revolutionary 


tions  were  made  after  a  long  interval,  as  in  the  case  of  the  post-Revolutionary  man- 
telpieces at  Tuckahoe,  the  Mulberry,  and  the  two  Van  Cortlandt  houses,  the  dif- 
ference of  style  is  unmistakable.  There  is  also  the  possibility,  however,  of  changes 
made  soon  after  the  first  building.  Thus,  as  we  have  just  seen,  although  the  Han- 
cock house  was  occupied  in  1740,  the  panelling  of  its  great  rooms  was  not  done 
until  1745.     In  the  case  of  Monticello,  even  more  deceptive  additions  were  made. 

'  Colonial  Records  of  North  Carolina,  vol.  8  (1890),  pp.  7-8. 

114 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

For  the  dining-room  window  the  inner  architrave  had  been  put  up  before  1775, 
but  the  frieze  and  cornice  were  added  about  1803.^ 

Panelling  was  adopted  in  place  of  wainscot  sheathing  about  1700.  Such  pan- 
elling of  rooms  in  wood  throughout  (figure  79)  was  proportionately  commoner  in 
the  first  half  of  the  century  than  after  that,  although  a  number  of  late  panelled 
rooms  may  be  found:  in  the  Van  Rensselaer  manor-house,  the  Jeremiah  Lee  house, 
the  Corbit  house  at  Odessa,  Delaware,  and  several  houses  in  Charleston.     Some  of 


From  a  photograph  by  H.  P.  Coofc 

Figure  84.     The  hall  at  Stratford.     Between  1725  and  1730 

these,  to  be  sure,  are  the  most  elaborate  of  the  colonies:  the  "mahogany  room"  of 
the  Lee  house,  with  its  rich  carved  pendent  festoons,  or  the  drawing-room  of  the 
Miles  Brewton  house  (figure  80)— finest  of  all — with  its  proportions,  doorways, 
chimneypiece,  and  portraits  reminiscent  of  the  splendid  Double  Cube  at  Wilton  in 
England.  Restriction  of  the  panelling  to  two  sides  or  one  side  of  the  room,  or  to 
the  chimney-breast  only,  was  chiefly  a  question  of  means  or  of  the  importance  of 
the  room.  Limitation  of  panelling  merely  to  a  dado  began  in  the  stair  halls,  where 
awkward  shapes  were  otherwise  encountered.    Although  Tuckahoe  and  Westover 

'"Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  p.  167. 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

(figure  8i)  have  stair  halls  completely  panelled,  these  do  not  recur  in  dated  exam- 
ples at  a  later  time.  In  the  'fifties,  with  Woodford  and  Gunston,  appear  for  the 
first  time  houses  without  panelling  and  having  only  a  plain  dado. 

The  decreasing  use  of  panelling,  in  some  of  the  finest  houses,  was  closely  related 
to  the  development  of  paper-hangings.  Perhaps  the  earliest  use  of  them  is  men- 
tioned in  the  well-known  letter  of  Thomas  Hancock,  January  23,  1737-8,  order- 


Figure  85.     Drawing-room  from  Marmion,  Virginia 
In  the  Metropolitan  Museum 

ing  some  for  his  house,  where  he  speaks  of  hangings  brought  over  three  or  four 
years  previous,  with  great  variety  of  "Birds,  Peacocks,  Macoys,  Squirrels,  Mon- 
keys, Fruit  &  Flowers."^  The  use  of  paper-hangings  increased  steadily  down  to 
the  Revolution  and  after  it.-  Two  of  the  most  magnificent  sets  are  those  made 
specially  for  the  Jeremiah  Lee  house,  built  1768,  and  the  Van  Rensselaer  manor- 
house,  for  which  the  bill,  dated  1768,  is  preserved.^     Both  these  include  views  ot 

'  Quoted  in  full  by  Arthur  Gilman,  "The  Hancock  House,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  vol.  II  (1863),  pp.  692-707. 
-  Cf.  J.  B.  Felt,  "Annals  of  Salem,"  second  edition  (1845),  vol.  i,  p.  406;  and  Bishop,  "American  Manufac- 
tures," vol.  I,  pp.  208-210. 

3  M.  T.  Reynolds,  "The  Colonial  Buildings  of  Rensselaerwyck,"  Architectural  Record,  vol.  4  (1895),  p.  428. 

116 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 


Roman  ruins  in  rocaille  frames.  Not  all  the  rooms  from  which  panelling  was  ban- 
ished seem  to  have  been  intended  to  receive  wall-paper,  however.  At  Whitehall, 
the  Chase  house,  and  Monticello  (figure  82),  the  chaste  austerity  of  plastered  walls 
seems  to  have  been  consciously  preferred. 

Where  panelling  was  used,  the  customary  type  remained  until  1765  that  with  a 
narrow  sunk  moulding  and  a  bevelled  raised  panel,  its  centre  flush  with  the  sur- 
rounding rails.  This  was  in  accordance  with 
the  statement  of  Moxon  in  his  discussion, 
"Of  Wainscoting  Rooms":  "You  may  (if 
you  will)  adorn  the  outer  edges  of  the  Stiles 
and  Rails  with  a  small  Moulding :  and  you 
may  (if  you  will)  Bevil  away  the  outer  edges 
of  the  Pannels,  and  leave  a  Table  in  the 
middle  of  the  Pannel."^  In  rare  instances 
throughout  this  time  there  were  raised 
or  "bolection"  mouldings,  themselves 
bringing  the  entire  panel  in  front  of  the 
rails.  These  occur  in  the  McPhedris  house, 
the  John  Vassall  house,  and  the  Jeremiah 
Lee  house.  After  176^,  in  the  Miles  Brew- 
ton  and  Stuart  houses  at  Charleston  and  in 
the  Corbit  house,  Odessa,  Delaware,  appears 
the  flat  sunk  panel,  sometimes  bordered 
with  mouldings  partly  raised,  partly  sunk. 
The  tendency  was  toward  fewer  and  larger 
panels,  the  finest  houses,  such  as  West- 
over,  Carter's  Grove,  the  Van  Rensselaer 
and  Miles  Brewton  houses  having  broad  panels  reaching  from  the  dado  to  the  cornice. 

The  dado  cap  itself  was  ordinarily  carried  along  continuously,  butted  against 
the  door  and  window  casings;  but  in  several  early  houses,  such  as  Tuckahoe,  the 
McPhedris  house,  and  Stratford,  it  is  interrupted  short  of  these,  being  mitred 
against  the  wainscot.  This  still  persists  in  the  Van  Cortlandt  house  in  Lower  Yon- 
kers,  and  in  parts  of  Carter's  Grove,  and  it  even  recurs  in  the  Lee  house.  Marble- 
head,  in  1768,  but  at  this  late  date  it  was  highly  exceptional. 

Almost  from  the  first  introduction  of  panelling  it  was  not  uncommon  for  the 
wall  treatment  to  include  pilasters.    They  appear  on  either  side  of  the  fireplaces  at 

'  "Mechanick  Exercises:  The  Art  of  Joinery,"  second  edition,  with  additions  (1694),  p.  106,  and  pi.  7. 

•         117 


June  liic  ■x'Si\  i^'ij. 
Havidi:;  pfruCed  this  Tic  a  tile 
Qi'  CARPKNTKY  comj.iicd 
by^  U'  F>  aiu'tu  ffic^.^'^'^  ibiiik. 
it  a  very  Uiefull  and  Infrruc'^ive 
Piece,   aarl  as  I'uch,  recommend 

%  A  V 

It  ro  every  one    concerned  in  t 
"tt'Drks  of  ihar  kiad  . 

_vr  /faii'/cjrftorf: 


Figure  86.     Tablet  from  The  British 
Carpenter 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Tuckahoe  (figure  83),  Westover  (figure  102),  the  Hancock  house,  and  many  later 
houses,  rising  sometimes  from  the  floor,  sometimes  from  the  dado.  In  the  hall  at 
Strattord  (figure  84)  they  are  used  more  ambitiously,  completely  surrounding  the 
room  at  intervals  measurably  regular  in  effect,  though  not  perfectly  equal.  A  simi- 
lar treatment,  with  Ionic  pilasters,  is  found  in  the  drawing-room  from  Marmion 
(figure  85),  now  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum,  and  was  apparently  used  likewise 


i  ro»i  a  photograph  by  H.  P.  Cort 

Figure  87.     Northwest  pador  at  Carter's  Grove.      1751 

in  the  Clark  or  Frankland  house  in  Boston  built  by  William  Clark,  who  died  in 
1742.^  These  rooms  remained  unique,  being  rivalled  in  consistent  "order"  treat- 
ment perhaps  only  by  the  entrance  hall  at  Carter's  Grove,  where  uniform  pilasters 
flank  the  doorways  and  the  central  arch.  It  was  relatively  rare  elsewhere  for 
pilasters  to  stand  under  a  continuous  entablature  surrounding  the  room,  as  in  these 
houses.  Usually,  even  at  a  late  period,  they  were  employed,  it  at  all,  isolated  and 
of  different  scales,  as  the  individual  elaboration  of  hall  arches,  doorways,  and  chim- 
neypieces  might  suggest.     In  the  Dalton  house,  Newburyport,  and  the  Philipse 

IS.  A.  Drake,  "Old  Landmarks  of  Boston"  (1873),  p.  165. 

118 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 


manor-hall  at  Yonkers,  both  of  uncertain  date,  engaged  columns,  bolder  in  relief, 
replaced  the  pilasters.  Free-standing  columns  on  the  interior  occur  during  Colo- 
nial times  only  in  two  late  houses  of  exceptionally  formal  disposition:  Cliveden, 
after  1763,  and  the  Chase  house,  Annapolis,  1769-1771.  Those  in  the  library  of  the 
John  A'assall  house  seem  to  be  additions  by  Andrew  Craigie  alter  the  Revolution. 
Arched  doorways  were  occasionally  used  throughout  the  Colonial  period.  Spe- 
cially characteristic  of  the  time  from  1725  to  1760,  however,  were  the  cupboard 


:'SST'!S!5S« 


r  f'ioU'gy.iJ-ii  i'y  J  r.t 


Figure  88.     The  great  chamber,  Graeme  Park.      1721  to  1722 

doors  with  arched  heads  frequently  used  to  flanR  a  fireplace.  These  occur  in  dated 
examples  at  Stenton,  the  Eveleigh  house,  Charleston,  the  Van  Cortlandt  house, 
Lower  Yonkers,  at  Whitby  and  Mount  Pleasant.  Instances  can  be  lound,  to  he 
sure,  after  the  Revolution  also.  A  variant  was  the  employment  ot  open  semicir- 
cular niches,  of  which  perhaps  the  earliest  domestic  example  is  at  Gunston  Hall, 
1758.  Others,  of  more  classical  aspect,  form  part  of  the  stair  hall  in  the  Chase 
house,  a  dozen  years  later. 

In  the  usual  square-headed  doorways,  the  architrave  was  commonly  treated 
with  mitred  "ears"  at  the  top.  From  1758,  when  they  appear  at  Gunston,  a  frieze 
and  cornice  were  frequently  added  to  important  doors,  most  usually  with  a  broken 

119 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

triangular  pediment.  Tlie  frieze  might  be  plain,  curved,  or  even  decorated  with 
carving,  but  in  doorways  before  the  Revolution  was  not  treated  with  end  blocks 
or  central  panel.  A  pediment  with  cyma  unbroken  was  found  only  in  houses  of 
exceptionally  academic  character:  Graeme  Park,  Mount  Pleasant,  and  Monticello. 
A  door  enframement  with  pilasters  was  unusual:  there  are  instances  at  Gunston, 
Whitehall,  and  the  Miles  Brewton  house,  all  dating  after  1758.  The  William  Brand- 


Fran  a  photograph  by  Frank  Coiisms 

Figure  89.     Room  to  right  of  the  hall,  Jeremiah  Lee  house,  Marblehead.     1768 


ford  (Horry)  house  in  Charleston,  built 'somewhere  between  1751  and  1767,  has 
folding  doors  framed  by  pilasters  and  an  entablature.  Doorways  with  consoles 
supporting  the  entablature  were  also  rare  in  domestic  interiors.  Two  dated  exam- 
ples are  at  Mount  Pleasant  and  the  Miles  Brewton  house,  both  after  1760. 

Window  casings  rarely  involved  other  members  beyond  an  architrave.  The 
architrave  itself  had  ears  less  often  than  did  the  door  casings.  In  two  important 
instances,  however,  it  is  enriched  by  carved  scrolls  at  the  bottom:  in  Whitehall,  and 
the  Chase  house  at  Annapolis,  both  from  the  'sixties  and  but  a  few  miles  apart. 

120 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

This  was  a  familiar  device  in  English  work,  perhaps  the  most  conspicuous  illustra- 
tion in  the  handbooks  being  the  plate  bearing  a  recommendation  of  Francis  Price's 
"British  Carpenter,"  published  in  1733  (figure  86).  At  the  ^'an  Cortlandt  house, 
1748,  the  windows  have  small  cornices;  at  Carter's  Grove  (figure  87),  1751,  they 
have  a  frieze  and  a  cornice  formed  by  breaking  out  the  main  cornice  of  the  room. 
Gunston  Hall,  1758,  has  the  most  elaborate  window  treatment  internally:  a  pair 
of  pilasters  with  full  entablature.  Interior  panelled  shutters  folding  into  the 
jambs  of  the  windows  are  well-known  features  ot  much  Colonial  work.  The  oldest 
examples  are  at  Graeme  Park.  The  specifications  of  the  Ayrault  house,  Newport, 
1739,  call  for  "window  shuts  in  all  the  rooms  below," ^  and  those  of  the  Pinckney 
house,  Charleston,  1746,  for  "three  panneled  shutters"  in  the  first  floor  windows.^ 

For  framing  the  fireplace  opening,  as  for  windows  and  doors,  the  eighteenth 
century  used  a  mitred  moukiing  following  more  or  less  closely  the  classic  archi- 
trave. The  earliest  example  of  this  treatment,  the  Penn  house,  well  before  1700, 
has  a  heavy  curved  bolection  moulding,  with  a  trieze  and  cornice  providing  a  man- 
tel-shelf (figure  28).  Fireplace  openings  without  a  cornice  or  mantel-shelt  long 
remained  common.  Counting  those  where  mantelpieces  were  added  atter  the  Revo- 
lution, they  include  ones  at  Tuckahoe,  the  Mulberry,  the  McPhedris  house,  Sten- 
ton,  the  Van  Cortlandt  house  in  Lower  Yonkers,  Mount  Pleasant,  and  in  some 
rooms  of  Graeme  Park  (figure  88),  Carter's  Grove,  and  the  John  ^'assall  and  Jere- 
miah Lee  houses,  the  last  as  late  as  1768  (figure  89).  On  the  other  hand,  the  Penn 
fireplace  was  not  unique,  even  at  an  early  day,  in  having  a  cornice,  which  exists 
on  one  fireplace  at  Graeme  Park  (figure  79)  and  on  one  at  Carter's  Grove,  as  well 
as  in  most  later  houses.  The  openings  of  the  McPhedris  and  some  of  the  Lee  fire- 
places, at  least,  had  the  bolection  moulding,  the  others  a  typical  architrave  section 
of  fascias  and  a  small  moulded  back  band.  It  was  very  characteristic  of  pre-Revo- 
lutionary  work  for  the  architrave  to  have  ears,  although  occasional  examples  may 
be  found  without.  Consoles  above  the  architrave  occur  at  Mount  Pleasant  and 
in  the  Lee  house,  both  from  the  'sixties,  as  well  as  at  Kenmore  and  Mount  Vernon, 
also  before  the  Revolution.  Consoles  buttressing  the  sides  of  the  architrave  like- 
wise exist  at  the  Lee  house  and  Mount  Vernon,  as  well  as  at  the  Brice  house  in 
Annapolis.  An  order  of  small  pilasters  or  columns  supporting  the  mantel  was 
known  in  the  colonies  prior  to  the  Revolution  only  in  imported  chimneypieces  of 
marble,  to  be  discussed  later. 

It  was  customary  to  have  a  panelleei  chimney-breast  above  the  fireplace.     In 

'  Published  by  G.  C.  Mason,  American  Architect,  vol.  lo  (1881),  p.  83. 
-Smith,  "DweUing  Houses  of  Charleston,"  p.  368. 

121 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

the  majority  of  examples  until  after  1750,  especially  where  there  was  no  mantel- 
shelf, the  panels  here  often  had  merely  the  section  of  ordinary  wainscot,  identical 
with  any  used  elsewhere  in  the  room,  or  perhaps  had  the  greater  relief  of  a  bolec- 


From  a  photograph  hy  Frank  Lvustns 

Figure  90.     Mantel  in  room  to  left  of  hall,  Lee  house.     1768 

tion  moulding.  This  latter  may  be  seen  in  some  rooms  of  the  Jeremiah  Lee  house 
as  late  as  1768.  The  majority  of  chimneypieces  after  1750,  however,  had  a  special 
overmantel:  a  single  large  panel  framed  by  an  architrave,  more  or  less  elaborated. 
Two  early  overmantels  are  to  be  found  at  Graeme  Park,  built  in  1721,  but  these 

122 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

are  highly  exceptional  for  their  time.  Ears  on  the  architraves  are  almost  univer- 
sal, as  elsewhere  in  Colonial  times,  and  a  pediment,  always  broken,  was  very  com- 
mon from  the  beginning.    After  1760  the  scroll  pediment,  or  a  similar  treatment  of 


rr[M_r^\  ^Jj^'^J »^_^£..«^£^■»v_;^-v^J^^J;^T•  iiTMiTi iinlt-iilWidf .■». 


.«^.„ 


!  ^/         A/.  ^tZr^ttiKf  bf  Oct  Y  ^i'i'^num^  ■**'^/   ^  '~-*  ^, 


Figure  91.     Chimneypiece  from  Swan's  British  Architect  (1745),  plate  51 
Prototype  of  the  Lee  house  mantel 


the  architrave,  frequently  occurs,  contemporary  with  the  employment  of  this  fea- 
ture in  doors:  at  Mount  Pleasant,  the  Schuyler,  Van  Rensselaer,  Miles  Brewton, 
Jeremiah  Lee,  and  John  Stuart  houses.     At  Whitby,  1754,  and  Mount  Pleasant 

123 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


near  by,  after  1761,  there  is  an  "overmantel,"  notwithstanding  the  absence  of  a 
mantel-shelf,  the  architraves  above  and  below  being  united  by  small  projecting 
consoles.  From  about  the  same  time  flat  consoles  buttressing  the  overmantel  were 
also  adopted,  as  tor  the  architrave  oi  the  fireplace  opening  itself:  at  Woodford,  Gun- 
ston,  the  Miles  Brewton,  Lee,  and  Stuart  houses.  In  a  few  chimneypieces,  at  the 
Brandford  (Horry)  house,  Charleston,  and  the  Brewton  and  Van  Rensselaer  houses, 
the  overmantel  is  flanked  by  small  pilasters.  The  exact  date  of  the  Horry  house 
is  uncertain,  but  it  is  surely  after  1751  and  before  1767;  the  others  are  after  1765. 

A  special  influence  on  Colonial  chimneypieces  was  ex- 
ercised by  Abraham  Swan's  "British  Architect,  or  Build- 
er's Treasury  of  Staircases.  Containing  ...  a  great 
A'ariety  of  New  and  curious  Chimneypieces,"  of  which 
the  first  edition  was  published  in  1745,  later  ones  in  i7«;o 
and  1758,  anci  American  editions  at  Philadelphia  in  1775 
and  in  Boston.  Many  of  the  chimneypieces  with  con- 
soles which  we  have  mentioned  are  derived  with  little 
modification  from  the  plates  of  this  book.^  Thus  that  of 
the  "mahogany  room"  in  the  Lee  house,  Marblehead 
(figure  90),  follows  plate  51  (figure  91)  line  for  line;  that 
ot  the  dining-room  at  Mount  Vernon,  plate  50.  The  elab- 
orate mantels  in  the  Brice  house  at  Annapolis,  although 
not  taken  as  a  whole  from  single  plates,  are  combinations 
Figure  q-'.  Console  from  "^  elements  copied  from  Swan  with  special  literalness. 
chimneypiece  of  parlor  man-     Thus  in  the  living-room  mantel  the  rocaiUe  consoles  at 

either  side  ot  the  fireplace  opening  come  directly  from 
those  shown  in  plate  51,  and  many  motives  of  the  other 
consoles,  the  frieze,  and  the  overmantel  are  taken  from  plates  52  and  53.  The  con- 
soles of  the  fireplace  in  the  parlor  (figure  92)  are  identical  with  those  of  plate  50 
(figure  93),  and  the  carved  moulding  of  its  architrave  exactly  follows  the  detail 
given  on  plate  51.  The  Brice  house  has  been  traditionally  ascribed  to  1740,-  but  it 
is  obvious  from  these  relationships  that  the  interior  finish,  at  least,  dates  from  some 
time  after  1745,  at  earliest. 

The  most  elaborate  of  all  the  chimneypieces  carved  in  the  colonies  (figure  94), 
that  of  the  Council  Chamber  of  the  Governor  Wentworth  house  at  Little  Harbor, 
near  Portsmouth,  with  its  termini  supporting  the  mantel,  is  derived  from  plate  64 
in  William  Kent's  "  Designs  of  Inigo  Jones,"  a  folio  work  of  which  several  copies 

'  Its  use  at  Annapolis  lias  been  already  noted  by  T.  H.  Randall,  "Colonial  Annapolis,"  Architectural  Record. 

vol.  I  (1892),  p.  318.  "-  E.  g.,  ib.,  p.  335. 

124 


tel  in  the  Brice  house,  An- 
napolis 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

are  known  to  have  been  in  the  colonies.  There  is  a  somewhat  similar  design  in 
Swan's  book,  plate  54,  but  this  has  no  overmantel  and  is  otherwise  not  so  nearly 
identical  with  the  American  example. 

Facings  of  marble  for  the  fireplace  opening  were  often  provided,  the  oldest 
houses  having  them  being  Stenton  and  Westover.  Ordinarily  these  were  plain 
slabs  constituting  the  fascia  of  the  architrave.     At  Whitby,  built  1754,  the  soffit 


^^itttM     tA   t^- 


/'.i^^A.M^  *  t-t  j/V»«t.~-/^^ .''/  •'  *; 


Figure  93.     Chimneypiece  from  Swan's  British  Architect,  plate  50.     With  elements 
used  in  Mount  Vernon  and  the  Brice  house 

of  the  lintel  slab  is  profiled  more  richly,  and  there  is  the  suggestion  of  a  moulded 
keystone.  It  was  a  facing  like  this,  as  we  see  by  the  photograph  preserved  at  the 
Old  State  House  in  Boston,  which  is  referred  to  in  the  bill  of  the  joiner,  William 
More,  against  Thomas  Hancock:^  "1746  June  28,  To  Cuting  away  the  flore  & 
fixing  for  y  Laying  of  your  harthes  &  asisting  the  mason  in  puting  up  the  frun- 
tis'"'''^  of  marbel  3-0-0."  Westover  is  unique  in  having  a  broad  expanse  of  marble  on 

1  Hancock  MSS..  Boston  Public  Library. 
I2-; 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


the  chimney-breast,  terminating  in  a  pediment,  and  restored  to-day  with  a  panel 
and  festoons  above  the  fireplace  (figure  102). 

By  the  middle  of  the  century  whole  mantelpieces  of  marble  began  to  be  im- 


<-<i/vrj>/;/  l!y  George  H.  Polity 

Figure  94.     Chimneypiece  in  the  Council  Chamher,  Wentvvorth  house.  Little  Harbor 

ported,  x-^t  Carter's  Grove,  built  1751,  one  room  had  a  full  marble  mantelpiece 
with  frieze  and  cornice  (figure  87),  another  merely  marble  architrave-facings. 
Bills  for  the  Schuyler  house  include  one  of  1767  for  "4  marble  chimney  pieces  with 
hearths."^  Governor  Tryon  enclosed  in  one  of  his  letters  of  1769  a  description  of 
the  finest  of  the  chimneypieces  for  his  house: 

'  G.  Schuyler,  "The  Schuyler  Mansion,"  p.  6. 
126 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

For  the  Council  Chamber  in  the  Governor's  House  at  Newbern  in  North  Carolina. 

A  large  statuary  Ionic  chimney  piece,  the  shafts  of  the  columns  sienna  and  the  frett 

on  the  Frieze  inlaid  with  the  same.     A  rich  edge  and  Foliage  on  the  Tablet;  medals  of  the 


Figure  95.     Chimneypiece  from  Kent's  Design  of  Inigo  Jones,  plate  64.      Prototype 
of  the  Council  Chamber  mantel  in  the  Wentworth  House,  Little  Harbor 


King  &  Queen  on  the  Frieze  over  the  Columns,  the  mouldings  enriched,  a  large  statuary 
marble  slab  and  black  marble  covings. 
Messrs.  Devol  &  Granger /<'r//.' 

•  Colonial  Records  of  North  Carolina,  vol.  8  (1890),  p.  8. 
127 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


It  is  to  be  noted  that  this  chimneypiece  was  flanked  by  a  small  order  with 
columns.  Analogous  flanking  members  occur  in  the  other  marble  mantels  of  this 
late  period.  One  in  the  Van  Rensselaer  house  has  carved  terminal  figures;  the  one 
in  the  Miles  Brewton  drawing-room  has  pilaster-like  strips  crowned  by  consoles; 
the  one  in  the  parlor  of  the  Chase  house  has  half-pilasters.  The  Tryon  chimney- 
piece  also  had  another  feature  found  at  this  time  only  in  imported  mantels:  a  frieze 
with  a  central  panel  and  end  motives,  decorated  with  reliefs.  Here  there  were 
medallions  at  the  ends,  foliage  in  the  centre.     In  the  Chase,  Van  Rensselaer,  and 

Brewton  mantels,  the  central  block  has  fig- 
ure sculpture,  the  first  popularly  supposed 
to  represent  a  scene  from  Shakespeare. 

The  stairs,  so  conspicuously  placed  in 
most  Colonial  houses,  were  developed  as  an 
artistic  end  in  themselves,  irrespective  of 
whether  there  were  important  or  public 
rooms  above  the  ground  story. 

The  adoption  of  an  open  string,  with 
the  ends  of  the  treads  showing,  marked  the 
change  to  the  eighteenth  century,  although 
a  few  houses,  such  as  Graeme  Park  (figure 
96)  and  the  Van  Cortlandt  house  in  Lower 
Yonkers,  retain  the  closed  string  character- 
istic ot  the  previous  period.  The  ends  of 
each  step  of  the  new  stairs  were  treated 
either  with  a  block,  plain  or  panelled,  or 
with  a  console-like  scroll,  or  with  both. 
All  these  varieties  were  also  common  in 
England.  Plain  block  ends  are  generally  early,  as  in  the  McPhedris  house  and 
Stenton;  whereas  panelled  blocks  may  occur  at  any  later  time:  1761  in  the  Timothy 
Orne  house,  Salem.  Scroll  ends  begin  equally  early,  at  Tuckahoe,  Rosewell,  and 
Westover.  In  the  Hancock  house,  where  the  stairs  (figure  100)  established  a  new 
model  of  richness  in  so  many  respects,  there  were  blocks  and  scrolls  as  well,  and 
this  was  imitated  in  the  Jeremiah  Lee  and  other  houses.  The  earliest  examples  of 
the  scroll  ends,  at  Tuckahoe  (figure  97)  and  Rosewell,  are  carved  somewhat  in  the 
manner  of  Gibbons,  with  foliage  and  flowers  rather  naturalistically  treated,  and  this 
recurs  at  Carter's  Grove  in  the  middle  of  the  century.  At  Westover  there  is  a  really 
academic, modillion-like  scroll  (figure  81),  but  this  was  unusual.    The  Hancock  house 

128 


From  a  photo^-aph  by  I'rtink  Cohskh 

Figure  96.     The  stairs  at  Graeme  Park 
1721  to  1722 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

initiated  the  use  of  a  scroll  block  sawn  to  fantastic  profile,  in  which  a  beaklike  ele- 
ment predominates,  and  this  was  henceforth  the  commonest  form,  occurring  at 
Whitby,  Woodford,  Mount  Pleasant,  Cliveden  (figure  98),  and  in  the  John  Vassall 
and  Roger  Morris  houses.  In  the  Miles  Brewton  house  and  the  Jeremiah  Lee  house 
(figure  99),  both  in  the  later  'sixties,  rocaiUe  scrolls  appear.     Ordinarily  the  soiiit  of 


Fro)>:  n  photfl^aph  by  H.  P.  Cook 

Figure  97.     The  stairs  at  Tuckahoe.     Before  1730 

the  stairs  was  unaffected  by  the  form  ot  the  stair  ends,  but  occasionally  their  pro- 
file was  carried  the  full  width  of  the  stair.  The  Hancock  house  is  the  first  instance. 
The  other  dated  examples  are  late:  the  Orne  house,  1761,  for  the  block  ends;  the 
Chase  house,  1 769-1 771,  for  the  scroll  ends. 

The  balusters  of  the  eighteenth  century  were  longer  and  more  slender  than 
those  of  the  seventeenth,  and  were  more  closely  spaced,  generally  three  to  a  step. 
The  turned  part  of  all  three  began  at  the  same  height,  so  that  there  were  three 
types  with  turning  of  unequal  length.  Sometimes  the  turning  was  of  the  ordi- 
nary sort,  at  right  angles  to  the  axis  of  the  baluster,  but  in  many  instances  the  new 

1^9 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


device  of  spiral  or  swash  turning  was  employed.  Full  directions  for  this  are  given  by 
Moxon  in  his  "Mechanick  Exercises.  .  .  .  Applied  to  the  Art  of  Turning"  (1694). ^ 
It  was  used  in  the  balusters  of  some  of  the  first  houses  of  the  new  century,  such 
as  Westover  and  Rosewell.  In  the  Hancock  house  the  three  types  of  balusters 
were  turned  with  different  spiral  patterns  (figures  100  and  loi),  and  this  fashion 
was  carried  on  in  dozens  of  New  England  staircases  down  to  the  Revolution,  as 
well  as  in   the  Schuyler  house  at  Albany.     Perfectly  plain   balusters  were   rare 

in  Colonial  days,  although  they  may  be 
found:  square  ones  at  Woodford  and  in 
the  Chase  house,  round  ones  in  the  Roger 
Morris  house. 

Square  newels,  seen  in  Wren's  x'\shmo- 
lean  Museum  at  Oxford,  were  frequently 
employed  before  1750,  as  in  the  McPhedris 
house,  Graeme  Park  (figure  96),  Stenton, 
and  the  Van  Cortlandt  house  in  Lower 
Yonkers;  they  are  rare  after  this  date.  Of 
the  circular  newels  the  earliest  examples, 
at  Tuckahoe  and  Rosewell,  have  carved 
foliage;  many  after  1735  have  swash  turn- 
ing. A  single  spiral  is  used  in  the  main 
newels  of  Carter's  Grove  and  in  the  Schuy- 
ler house,  and  in  newels  at  the  turns  in 
New  England  houses.  The  Hancock  house 
initiated  the  tour  deforce  of  a  double  spiral 
in  its  main  newel,  the  inner  one  twisting 
in  the  opposite  direction  from  the  outer,  and  this  was  imitated  in  many  later  New 
England  houses.  Elsewhere  the  later  newels  were  generally  left  plain,  as  they  were 
concealed  by  surrounding  balusters  supporting  the  end  of  a  hand-rail  which  termi- 
nated in  a  horizontal  scroll.  This  is  first  found  at  Westover;  it  became  common 
after  1750.  Even  when  this  device  was  not  used,  the  newel  after  1730  was  com- 
monly set  out  beyond  the  line  of  the  hand-rail,  which  curved  to  it.  That  of  the 
Roger  Morris  house,  set  in  front  of  the  lower  step,  is  a  rare  exception.  In  the  last 
years  before  the  Revolution  there  was  a  tendency  to  round  the  turns  of  the  balus- 
trade also.  At  the  Miles  Brewton  house  it  makes  a  semicircle  between  the  landing 
newels,  although  the  front  of  the  landing  is  straight;  in  the  Chase  house,  for  the 

'"§XXV.     Of  Turning  Swash-Work,"  pp.  229-230,  and  pi.  18. 


>i  P'iotos^aph  by  Fnii, 

Figure  98.     The  stairs  at  Cliveden 
After  1763 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

first  time,  it  curves  around  without  any  intermediate  newels.  In  the  plan  made 
for  his  house  by  the  painter  Copley  in  1771/  it  is  the  laneling  which  is  semicircular. 
Stairs  themselves  laid  out  on  an  arc  of  a  circle  do  not  occur  before  the  Revolution. 
The  hand-rail  at  Graeme  Park  and  Stenton,  as  in  seventeenth-century  Colonial 
houses  and  as  in  the  Ashmolean,  runs  directly  against  the  newel  posts,  but  in  fine 


From  (I  /;.v/,>i-j  .j//(  1-y  Fi-.titi  Cousins 

Figure  99.     The  stairs  of  the  Jeremiah  Lee  house.      1768 


Staircases  of  later  date  it  is  customary  to  have  curved  casings,  which  first  appear 
at  Tuckahoe,  Rosewell,  and  the  McPhedris  house.  Similar  curves  were  often  in- 
troduced in  the  horizontal  rail  on  the  landings. 

Stair  rails  with  Chinese  lattice  instead  of  balusters,  which  may  be  seen  at 
Boughton  House  in  England,  exist  in  x'\merica  also,  for  instance  at  Bachelor's 
Hall  in  Maryland  and  at  Brandon.  The  dates  of  both  stairs  are  indeterminate, 
that  ot  the  latter  probably  after  the  Revolution. 

From  an  early  day  it  was  universal  in  fine  Colonial  stairs  to  have  a  sloping 

^  Collectiuns  <if  the  Massachusftts  Historical  Society,  vol.  71   (1914),  p.  136. 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

wainscoted  dado  against  the  wall  opposite  the  stair  rail.    Graeme  Park  and  Rose- 
well  are  perhaps  the  latest  conspicuous  exceptions. 

The  floors  in  houses  of  the  eighteenth  century  began  to  receive  a  share  in  the 
formal  design.  The  most  notable  instance  was  the  marquetry  of  the  Clark  or 
Frankland  house  in  Boston,  built  by  William  Clark,  who  died  in  1742.  The  house 
was  demolished  in  1833.    "The  floor  of  the  eastern  parlor  was  laid  in  diamond- 


Figure  100.     Details  of  stairs  and  stair-window  in  the  Hancock  house 

From  a  measured  drawing  by  John  Sturgis 

Courtesy  of  R.  Clipston  Sturgis 

shaped  figures,  and  had  in  the  centre  a  unique  and  curious  tesselated  design  .  .  . 
encircling  the  coat  of  arms  of  the  Clarke  family."^ 

Stucco  workers  were  rare  in  the  colonies,  and  most  plastered  surfaces  were  left 
plain,  but  in  a  few  fine  houses  they  were  enriched  with  lavish  ornament.  The  style 
initiated  by  the  French  rocaille  had  been  illustrated  in  several  English  works,  such 
as  the  "Designs"  of  Locke  (1741)  and  Thomas  Johnson  (1758,  1761),  and  plates 
showing  rocaille  ceilings  were  included  in  the  general  academic  handbooks  such  as 
Ware's  "Complete  Body  of  Architecture"  (1756).     Ceilings  of  this  character  ex- 

'  E.  Nason,  "Frankland,"  pp.  73-74.  An  independent  description  in  S.  A.  Drake,  "Old  Landmarks  of  Bos- 
ton," p.  165.  The  centrepiece  was  preserved  and  is  reproduced  \n  Proceedings  of  the  Bostonian  Society,  1887, 
facing  p.  27. 


13- 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 


isted  in  the  colonies  at  Westover,  in  the  Miles  Brewton  and  Huger  houses  in 
Charleston,  and  in  the  Philipse  manor-house  at  Yonkers.  At  Westover  the  fantas- 
tic inner  motives,  while  forming  a  composed  pattern,  are  not  continuous,  but  seem 
as  if  separately  embedded  in  the  ground  (figure  102).  Even  it  we  assume  them 
later  than  the  fire  of  1749,  the  ceilings  there  are  unique  for  the  time.  In  the  other 
ceilings  mentioned,  of  which  that  of  the 
Brewton  house  is  surely  contemporary  with 
its  building,  1 765-1 769,  there  is  greater 
continuity  and  delicacy.  Only  in  the  Hu- 
ger house  are  straight  lines  in  the  bor- 
ders wholly  abandoned.  The  Brewton 
ceiling  had  birds  in  relief,  the  Philipse  ceil- 
ing, not  only  birds  and  animals  but  small 
pastoral  figures,  and  even  two  large  busts. 
A  change  of  style  is  visible  in  the  ceil- 
ings of  the  Chase  house  at  Annapolis,  of 
Kenmore  near  Fredericksburg,  and  of 
Mount  Vernon,  rocaille  shell  work  giving 
place  to  geometric  patterns.  In  the  Chase 
house,  built  1769-1771,  the  stair  hall  (fig- 
ure lOj)  still  has,  in  the  central  circular 
panel,  an  attenuated  rocaille  motive,  but 
in  the  adjoining  panels  there  is  an  austere 
circle  of  classical  husks,  and  in  the  draw- 
ing-room the  central  panel  is  composed  of  Figure  loi.  Stairs  from  the  Hancock  house 
garlanded  husks  with  a  border  of  heavy  '      "^^  ^^    "'' 

n      .  ,  I  -1        1,  Courtesy  of  William  Sumner  Appleton 

nutmgs  and  paterae,  while  all  around  the 

ceiling  has  shallow  octagonal  cofl^ers.  Of  the  ceilings  at  Kenmore,  the  seat  of 
Colonel  Fielding  Lewis,  the  myth  is  repeated  that  they  were  executed  by  a 
Hessian  prisoner  during  the  Revolution.  That  they  were  in  reality  earlier  is 
shown  by  a  letter  of  Lund  Washington  to  Washington  in  1775,  which  at  the  same 
time  fixes  the  date  of  the  earliest  stucco  work  at  Mount  ^'ernon•.  "the  stucco  man" 
had  completed  "the  new  room,"  the  chimneypiece,  and  the  dining-room  ceiling, 
which  was  "a  handsomer  one  than  any  of  Col  Lewis's  although  not  half  the  work 
on  it."'  All  the  ceilings  at  Kenmore,  which  form  a  series  unsurpassed  in  America 
for  richness,  are  in  circular  patterns  made  up  of  rather  heavy  acanthus  rosettes  and 

'  P.  Wilstach,  "Mount  Vernon"  (1916),  p.  140. 


133 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

garlands  of  husks,  with  occasional  filling  of  acanthus  scroll  work.  The  pattern  in 
the  parlor  (figure  104),  both  by  its  general  form  and  by  the  crossed  palm  branches 
of  one  of  the  corner  panels,  betrays  a  derivation  from  plate  170  (figure  105)  of  Batty 
Langley's  "City  and  Country  Builder's  and  Workman's  Treasury  of  Designs,  or 
the  Art  of  Drawing  and  Working  the  Ornamental  Parts  of  Architecture,"  published 
in  1750,  although  the  plate  itself  is  dated  1739.    These  ceilings  represent  the  fore 


Fretn  a  photograph  by  H.  P.  Cook 


Figure  102.     The  parlor  at  Westover 


runners  of  the  Adams  in  the  reaction  against  the  rococo.  The  dining-room  ceiling 
at  Mount  Vernon,  mentioned  above,  is  of  much  the  same  character,  although  less 
crowded.  In  the  ceilings  of  the  west  parlor  and  the  banquet  hall — the  latter  not 
raised  until  the  summer  of  1776  at  earliest' — first  appeared  true  Adam  ornament, 
with  a  sunburst  ot  husks,  and  with  delicate  festoons. 

Plaster  cornices  were  used  in  connection  with  the  ceilings  at  Kenmore  and  in 
the  dining-room  at  Mount  Vernon;  at  Kenmore  the  overmantels  of  the  saloon  and 
the  parlor  were  also  modelled  entirely  in  stucco.     Both  have  a  naturalistic  treat- 

'  lb.,  p.  141. 


> 

; 

!    $ 

o 


/^ 


Figure  103.     Details  of  hall  ceiling  in  the  Chase  house,  Annapolis 


Frcnn  a  photosmfh  by  H.  P,  C9ok 


Figure  104.     The  parlor  at  Kenmore 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC   ARCHITECTURE 


I      I 


ment,  one  with  a  garland  and  a  basket  of  flowers,  the  other  with  a  wreath  encir- 
cHng  a  landscape  with  scenes  from  .Esop's  fables  (figure  io6).  In  Charleston  there 
are  instances  oi  rocaiUe  scrolls  on  the  walls:  over  the  stair  window  of  the  Miles 
Brewton  house  and  in  the  drawing-room  of  Colonel  William  Rhett's  house.  One 
panel  of  the  Rhett  room  has  a  more  classical  festoon. 

Painting  of  interiors  began  to  come  into  fashion  about  the  second  quarter  of 

the  eighteenth  century.'  Contrary  to  our 
usual  notion,  the  color  in  Colonial  days 
was  not  usually  or  initially  white.  For  the 
Governor's  Palace  at  Williamsburg  it  was 
ordered  in  council.  May  2,  1727,  "  that  the 
great  Dining  Room  and  Parlor  thereto  ad- 
joining, be  new  painted,  the  one  of  pearl 
color,  the  other  of  cream  color;  that  the 
window  frames,  outer  doors  and  eves  be 
also  new  painted."  Of  the  houses  in  New 
York  in  1748  Peter  Kalm  writes:  "The  al- 
coves, and  all  the  woodwork  were  painted 
with  a  bluish  grey  colour."-  The  interior 
of  Graeme  Park  still  shows  the  traces  of 
its  original  coat  o[  gray-blue  paint.  Paint 
in  contrasting  colors,  with  marbling  or 
graining,    was    not    unknown.      William 

Figure  105.     Design  for  a  ceiling  from  Lang-       Bentley,  of  Salem,  wrote  in  his  diary  in 

\ey'sCit\  and  Counirv Builder  s  aniWorkman  s  n    ^    ic-it-   •       ,1     -tit       n     •  i       i  -j 

t'         "    /  n    •      'i,^r  \     \  ^     .,  ibio:     \  isited  the  Woodbridge  house, said 

Ireasiiry  oj  Designs  (1750),  plate  170  "  &  ' 

to  be  140  years  old,  to  view  Holliman's 
painting.  He  died  about  1744.  The  great  southeast  room  is  pannelled  on  the  north 
side  around  the  fireplace.  The  ground  is  variegated  white  &  black  shaded.  The 
panels  brown  framed  in  white.  Above  in  the  chamber  the  ground  white  &  red 
variegated  shades,  frame  &  pannel  as  below.  One  beam  till  lately  covered  by  a 
closet  exhibits  all  the  beauty  of  this  man's  colouring."" 

In  the  Clark  house,  Boston,  purchased  by  Sir  Charles  Frankland  in  1747,  there 
were  "panels  on  each  of  which  was  painted  armorial  bearings,  landscapes  or  ruins. 
.  .  .     One  of  the  panels  of  this  room  bore  an  exact  resemblance  of  the  building."^ 

'J.  B.  Felt,  "Annals  of  Salem,"  second  edition  (1845),  vol.  i,  pp.  407-408. 

-"Resa,"  Eng.  tr.,  vol.  i   (1770),  p.  250.  ^  Vol.  4  (1914),  p.  392. 

■*  F.  S.  Drake,  "Old  Landmarks  of  Boston,"  p.   165;  Nason,  "Frankland,"  p.  73;  J.  Winsor,  "Memorial 
History  of  Boston,"  vol.  2  (1881),  p.  527. 


/  /.--v-;,.  ./"^^ 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

Several  of  these  are  still  preserved.  In  the  drawing-room  from  Marmion  in  Vir- 
ginia, now  in  the  Metropolitan  Museum,  the  panels  bear  paintings,  some  in  deco- 
rative designs  with  vases,  garlands,  and  horns  of  plenty,  others  with  scenes  on  the 


^^T^<Jl^M-"MTTT-»TTTTTrTt>TT.^-.,.,,,r.,. 

j,-^»'V^.A;;-y  v'V«*.V  ;■ -'i*// i'-^^.-/ 1(''«<*-.-/  V'<-4*r/1'ti^.,-/*;i . 

<hMhhRh  1}  [} fii^.D,.P 0  r>  /-i  /•>  /■' ."  ■  ■ 


From  a  photoip-aph  by  H.  P.  Cook 

Figure  io6.     Chimneypiece  in  the  saloon,  Kenmore 

terrace  of  a  chateau.    The  legend  that  these  were  executed  by  a  Hessian  prisoner 
scarcely  requires  credence  after  what  we  have  learned  of  Kenmore. 

Summarizing  the  phases  of  style  shown  by  interiors,  we  may  observe  that  the 
fundamental  treatment  of  the  orders,  so  frequently  used  in  wall  decoration,  door- 


137 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

ways,  and  chimneypieces,  remained  that  of  the  academic  theorists.  Proportions 
and  profiles  did  not  vary  greatly,  in  the  finer  houses,  from  those  established  by 
Palladio,  Vignola,  and  Scamozzi.  Within  the  academic  canon  no  one  order  has 
any  special  preference  or  priority:  Corinthian,  Ionic,  and  Doric  are  alike  found  in 
the  earliest  and  in  the  latest  houses  of  the  period.  As  on  the  exteriors,  only  the 
Scamozzi  type  with  angular  volutes  was  used,  except  in  the  single  case  of  Mar- 
mion.  A  baroque  touch,  familiar  in  Wren's  work  and  the  English  vernacular,  was 
characteristic:  the  prevalent  breaking  of  architraves  into  ears,  the  use  of  broken 
and  scroll  pediments,  the  multiplication  of  consoles  are  instances.  The  influence  of 
the  rococo,  as  indicated  by  rocaille  ornaments,  began,  if  we  leave  aside  the  ceilings 
at  W^estover  as  possibly  later  than  the  house  itself,  not  before  1745  at  earliest  and 
lasted  until  shortly  after  the  Revolution,  although  in  the  most  advanced  houses  it 
was  disappearing  just  before  the  war.  Related,  and  likewise  at  its  height  in  the 
'sixties,  was  the  influence  of  Chippendale's  "Chinese"  manner,  which  we  have 
seen  appearing  in  the  roof  balustrades  after  i~]K,6.  An  advertisement  in  the  South 
Carolina  Gazette,  April  i,  1757,  describes  the  James  Reid  house,  offered  for  sale,  as 
"new-built  .  .  .  after  the  Chinese  taste."'  The  decoration  of  the  Miles  Brewton 
house,  completed  1769,  is  full  of  Chippendale  motives,  in  which  rococo,  "Gothic," 
and  "Chinese"  are  mingled.  It  was  such  unacademic  forms  to  which  Jefferson 
referred  in  1782,  when  speaking  of  Colonial  houses,  as  "the  burden  of  barbarous 
ornaments  with  which  they  are  sometimes  charged.'"-  Only  at  Monticello,  after 
1770,  were  they  expurgated  in  the  interest  of  Palladian  purism. 

As  in  the  case  ot  the  seventeenth  century,  one  is  eager  to  obtain  a  touchstone 
by  which  the  date  of  houses  for  which  no  documents  exist  might  be  determined. 
Too  often,  of  course,  this  is  adopted  as  a  royal  way  to  knowledge,  which  it  is  hoped 
will  replace  the  arduous  search  in  old  records.  But,  where  these  have  really  been 
shown  to  be  non-existent  or  inconclusive,  there  remain  many  cases  in  which  one 
must  fall  back  on  the  criterion  of  style.  Even  then  a  single  feature  alone  can 
rarely  furnish  the  determination.  Many,  indeed,  persisted  with  insignificant 
changes  throughout  the  eighteenth  century.  But  if  the  bearing  of  each  significant 
feature  is  examined,  and  the  period  over  which  each  occurs  in  authentically  dated 
examples  is  noted,  the  time  for  which  all  these  periods  overlap  must  indicate  within 
reasonable  limits  the  date  of  the  building. 

An  instance  in  which  all  ciocumentary  and  structural  evidence  has  been  ex- 
haustively studied  without  furnishing  any  sufficient  ground  for  positive  dating,^ 

'Quoted  by  Smith,  "Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston,"  p.  358. 

-"Notes  on  Virginia,"  see  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  p.  35. 

'Hall,  "Phiiipse  Manor  Hall,"  pp.  210-247. 

138 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

is  the  rich  interior  finish  of  the  Philipse  manor-house  at  Yonkers.  In  this  case  the 
number  of  elements  furnishing  evidence  as  to  style  is  so  large  as  to  render  inference 
conclusive.  The  striking  general  resemblance  of  the  east  parlor  to  the  well-known 
room  of  the  New  River  Water  Company  in  London  is  less  instructive  than  similari- 
ties in  individual  details  with  other  American  rooms  at  an  equal  remove  from  the 
metropolis  of  the  empire.  Thus  all  the  dated  examples  of  circular  columns  in  in- 
teriors are  from  the  'sixties;  of  overmantels  with  consoles,  after  1756;  of  scroll  ped- 


Lofjrij^ht,  IQ13,  f'Y  Frank  Cousins 


Figure  107.     West  parlor,  Jerathmeel  Peirce  (Nichols)  house,  Salem.     Samuel 

Mclntire,  after  1779 


iments  in  overmantels,  between  176^  and  1769.  The  single  actually  dated  example 
of  a  roca'iUe  ceiling,  in  the  Miles  Brewton  house,  is  from  1765-1769,  and  rocaille 
motives,  such  as  occur  in  a  few  other  places  in  the  decoration,  may  be  paralleled 
elsewhere  about  1768.  There  can  be  little  doubt,  then,  that,  whatever  the  date  of  the 
walls  of  the  house,  the  embellishment  of  the  chief  rooms  was  done  not  far  from  1765. 
The  Royall  house,  another  building  respecting  which  the  documents  and  struc- 
ture have  already  been  carefully  studied,  offers  a  case  where  a  single  element  is 
exceptionally  instructive.     Comparison,  instituted  by  Donald  Millar,  between  the 

139 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Corinthian  capitals  ot  the  room  and  a  capital,  nearly  identical,  from  the  Hancock 
house,  preserved  in  Independence  Hall,  shows  conclusively  that  these  were  carved 
by  the  same  hand.     Since  this  is  the  largest  of  the  Hancock  capitals,  it  is  evidently 


Froffi  a  phot.  .  '.i    >.  ■  ,  J  ■  .^  ■.  .   ■     ..   ms 

Figure  io8.     John  Reynolds  (Morris)  house,  Philadelphia.      1786  to  1787 


one  from  the  "Loer  Rume"  panelled  by  William  More  in  i74«;-i746.     We  may  con- 
clude that  this  work  at  the  Royall  house  was  done  by  More  not  far  from  that  date. 
Where  the  detail  is  less  rich  or  less  significant,  it  may  scarcely  be  possible  to 
date  the  work  so  closely  by  its  style. 

140 


THE    EIGHTEENTH    CENTURY 

The  characteristics  of  the  Colonial  style  long  survived  the  Revolution.  It 
took  time  for  the  novel  ideas  of  the  following  era  to  be  widely  diffused  and  adopted. 
Many  even  of  the  finest  houses  built  immediately  after  the  Revolution  are  scarcely 
touched  by  any  breath  of  innovation.  Thus  the  Joseph  Brown  house  in  Provi- 
dence, built  shortly  before  1789,  is  closely  akin  in  style  to  the  Van  Rensselaer 
manor-house  of  1765.  The  older  rooms  of"  the  Jerathmeel  Peirce  (Nichols)  house 
in  Salem,  the  first  work  of  Samuel  Mclntire,  soon  after  1779  (figure  107),  would 
not  betray  that  they  had  not  been  executed  even  a  generation  earlier.  The  large 
town  house  built  by  John  Reynolds  in  Philadelphia  in  1 786-1 787  shows  likewise 
nothing  fundamentally  novel,  although  there  are  certain  minor  details  not  found 
before  the  Revolution  (figure  108).  Works  like  this  justify  the  term  "post-Colo- 
nial," which  may  properly  be  applied  to  all  the  less  ambitious  buildings  down  to 
1800.  With  the  reprinting  of  earlier  English  architectural  books  in  America  during 
and  after  the  war,'  many  details  of  an  earlier  day  were  perpetuated  even  beyond 
this  time.     Long  before  it,  however,  they  had  become  subordinate  to  new  forms. 

The  prevailing  belief  has  been  that  the  most  characteristic  American  architec- 
ture was  the  Colonial  work  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  that  conditions  peculiar 
to  America  at  that  time  gave  it  a  character  more  nearly  our  own  than  that  of  any 
later  phase  of  style.  Our  study  of  the  evidence  forces  the  conclusion,  on  the 
contrary,  that  the  special  effect  of  these  conditions  in  Colonial  architecture  has 
been  much  exaggerated.  As  in  the  first  primitive  shelters,  there  was  little  in  the 
later  buildings  of  the  colonies  which  did  not  find  its  origin  or  its  counterpart  in 
provincial  England  or  other  parts  of  Europe  of  the  same  day. 

There  were,  to  be  sure,  Americanisms,  there  were  local  dialects  differing  from 
the  king's  English  as  did  those  of  English  districts  themselves.  The  practised  eye 
may  recognize  even  the  houses  in  which  conformity  is  most  complete — Mount 
Airy  and  Mount  Pleasant,  for  instance — as  Colonial,  as  American.  The  houses  of 
the  by-roads,  the  simple  farmsteads  lagging  behind  the  march  of  progress,  are 
unmistakable. 

It  is  true  none  the  less  that  the  ideal  of  the  Colonial  style  remained  always 
conformity  to  current  English  usage.  It  is  not  the  Colonial  which  constitutes 
America's  really  characteristic  achievement  in  architecture.  A  truly  American 
contribution  to  architectural  style  appeareci  only  after  the  Revolution,  and  then 
it  assumed  a  historical  importance  which  has  been  little  recognized. 

'Swan's  "British  Architect"  and  some  of  his  "Designs  in  Architecture"  were  repubHshed  in  Philadelphia 
in  1775.  A  Boston  edition  of  Langlev's  "Builder's  Jewel"  was  still  in  print  in  1804.  John  Norman's  "Town 
and  Countr)'  Builder's  Assistant,"  published  in  Boston  in  1786,  has  its  text  and  plates  copied  largeK'  from  the 
same  work. 

141 


HOUSES    OF   THE   EARLY   REPUBLIC 


HOUSES   OF   THE   EARLY   REPUBLIC 

THE  Revolution  brought  a  fundamental  change  in  American  domestic 
architecture,  as  in  American  art  as  a  whole.  How  little  this  has 
been  appreciated  is  shown  by  the  extension  of  the  term  "Colonial" 
to  cover  all  the  work  to  1820,  or  even  later.  The  rank  and  hie  of 
builders,  to  be  sure,  continued  to  work  at  first,  as  we  have  seen,  in  much  the 
same  style  as  before,  but  the  leaders  were  inspired  by  very  different  ideals,  and 
these  were  rapidly  diffused  through  the  craft.  Chief  of  them  was  the  ideal  of 
classical  form.  This  involved  much  more  than  the  adoption  of  the  delicate 
Pompeian  detail  of  the  Adams;  its  ultimate  goals  were  the  unity  and  abstract 
quality  of  classical  ensembles:  the  temple  and  the  rotunda.  Simultaneously 
with  this  formal  ideal  came  the  ideal  of  modern  convenience,  which  had  originated 
in  the  France  of  Louis  XV.  \n  the  interplay  of  these  two  lies  the  key  to  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  American  house  during  the  first  sixty  years  of  the  republic.  So  far  as 
they  were  in  conflict  the  issue  in  America  was  less  a  reconciliation  between  them 
than  a  triumph,  in  all  its  absolutism,  of  the  formal,  classic  ideal. 

The  underlying  reasons  for  change  lay  in  political  and  cultural  movements  of 
the  time,  which  could  not  fail  to  have  far-reaching  consequences  in  art:  the  trans- 
formation from  colonies  in  provincial  dependence  on  England  to  sovereign  states 
soon  welded  into  a  nation,  whose  alliance  lay  with  France.  So  far  as  America 
borrowed  from  contemporary  art,  she  turned  now  less  to  England  than  to  the 
Continent.  There  was  not  so  much  a  transfer  of  allegiance,  however,  as  a  declara- 
tion of  independence.  The  new  states  and  the  nation  were  republics,  that  regarded 
as  their  models  not  the  monarchies  of  western  Evirope  but  the  ancient  democracies 
of  Rome  and  Greece.  In  art  also  it  was  natural  to  turn  to  the  classic  forms  of 
antiquity,  which  took  captive  the  new  republic  more  firmly  than  any  of  the  older 
nations  of  Europe. 

The  belief  has  been  wide-spread  that  the  passing  of  the  Colonial  and  post- 
Colonial  styles  marked  the  end  of  healthy  development  of  tratiitional  art  as  an 

145 


AMERICAN    DOMESTICARCHITECTURE 

outgrowth  of  contemporary  culture,  and  that  the  classic  revival  which  succeeded 
it  was  an  exotic  with  no  firm  roots  in  American  civilization.  It  is  overlooked  that 
the  Revolutionary  patriots — the  Cincinnati — persistently,  if  sophomorically,  iden- 
tified themselves  with  the  heroes  of  the  Roman  republic,  and  that  the  leaders  of 
thought  in  the  'thirties  had  a  consciousness  of  solidarity  with  ancient  Greece  which 
touched  every  department  of  life. 

The  classical  revival  was  indeed  a  movement  which  had  its  beginnings  abroad, 
and  which  there  also  had  the  same  ultimate  ideal,  the  temple.  By  priority  in  em- 
bodiment of  this  ideal,  however,  and  by  greater  literalness  and  universality  in  its 
realization,  America  reveals  an  independent  initiative.  The  origin  and  antecedents 
of  American  classic  buildings  of  a  public  nature  we  have  discussed  in  detail  else- 
where.' It  will  suffice  here  to  recall  that  the  Virginia  Capitol,  designed  in  1785, 
preceded  the  Madeleine  in  Paris,  first  of  the  great  European  temple  reproductions, 
by  twenty-two  years;  and  that  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  built  1819  to  1826, 
antedated  the  corresponding  foreign  versions  of  the  Parthenon,  the  National  Mon- 
ument at  Edinburgh,  and  the  Walhalla  at  Regensburg,  by  ten  years  or  more.  The 
adoption  ot  the  temple  form  abroad  for  buildings  devoted  to  practical  use  came 
still  later:  in  the  Birmingham  Town  Hall  (1831).  In  classicism  America  was  thus 
not  merely  a  follower;  rather,  a  leader  in  pressing  it  to  its  extreme  consequences. 

In  bringing  the  new  style  into  being  and  determining  its  character,  individuals 
played  far  more  prominent  roles  than  during  the  Colonial  period.  The  prophet  of 
the  new  gospel  was  JeflFerson,  its  earliest  apostles  were  other  distinguished  laymen 
and  amateurs.  They  not  only  established  the  ideals,  but  gave  the  first  object  les- 
sons. Among  those  who  contributed  to  more  monumental  treatment  by  designing 
their  own  houses  was  Washington  himself.  A  native  amateur  of  far  wider  activity 
and  of  great  influence  was  Charles  Bulfinch,  who  introduced  the  new  style  in  New 
England  after  his  youthful  European  travels.  Other  amateurs  in  architecture  to 
design  important  domestic  buildings  were  of  foreign  birth:  the  French  engineer 
L'Enfant  and  the  versatile  Doctor  William  Thornton. 

As  the  century  drew  to  a  close  men  of  professional  training  in  architecture  first 
appeared  in  America.  The  earliest  came  from  abroad:  James  Hoban  from  Ireland, 
and  Stephen  Hallet  from  France  in  1789;  Benjamin  Henry  Latrobe  from  England 
in  1796.  Americans  joined  them  as  time  went  on.  Bulfinch  became  a  professional 
in  the  nature  and  extent  of  his  practice  if  not  in  training;  Robert  Mills,  after  1800, 

'"Thomas  Jefferson  and  the  First  Monument  of  the  Classic  Revival  in  America"  (1915)-  esp.  p.  48; 
"Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  esp.  p.  42;  "The  Bank  of  Pennsylvania,"  Archiu-ctural  Record,  vol.  44  (1918), 
esp.  pp.  133-137. 

146 


Figure  109.     Plans  of  the  Woodlands,  Philadelphia,  as  remodelled,  1788 
From  measun-d  dra\vinc;s  by  Ocden  Codman. 


L 


^■h£ 


y 


^-ywffTji^::p:pftr,Tff.yrT-gTTrrfta— g7?T-w- 


Figure  no.     Plans  of  the  Harrison  Gray  Otis  house,  45  Beacon  Street,  Boston.     1S07 
From  measured  drawings  by  Ogden  Codman 


•r"lE'3"r-  r"l_OOI3,-    F='l_,^iM' 


Figure  III.      Plans  of  the  Van  Ness  house,  Washington.      Benjamin  Henry  Latrobe,  i8ij  to  1819 

From  measured  drawings  by  Ogden  Codman 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


studied  architecture  under  Hoban,  Jefferson,  and  Latrobe  to  fit  himself  regularly 
for  professional  practice. 

Gifted  craftsmen  showed  in  some  instances  remarkable  power  in  assimilating 
the  new  ideas.  Samuel  Mclntire  in  Salem  after  1792,  John  McComb  in  New  York 
after  1798,  were  little  behind  the  pioneers  and  were  themselves  leaders  of  impor- 
tance.   Their  practice  tended  to  assume  a  professional  character. 

Books  were  of  less  relative  influence  than  in  the  Colonial  period,  but  remained 
much  in  use.    The  amateurs  and  craftsmen  were  still  ciependent  on  them  tor  forms 


r 


:■  M  m  m  m 

liiii' 


1 


Figutc   112.      Designs  tor  the  HuiineWfU  (Sheplev)  lioList-,  Portl.inJ.      Alt-xaiidL-r  I'.iiiis,   lSq- 
From  the  original  drawing  at  the  Boston  Athenaeum 

of  detail,  and  now  drew  upon  them  more  often  for  the  arrangement  of  the  ensemble. 
A  stricter  reading  of  Palladio  was  Jefferson's  new  point  of  departure.  Gibbs's  more 
monumental  designs  and  the  "Vitruvius  Britannicus"  now  first  came  into  their 
own.  New  publications  macie  available  the  details  of  the  style  of  the  Adams. 
This  was  popularized  especially  by  the  later  works  of  William  and  James  Pain, 
such  as  the  "Practical  House  Carpenter,"  which  seems  to  have  been  owned  by 
Mclntire  and  other  builders.  No  less  than  four  of  Pain's  works  were  republished 
in  America  before  1804.'   A  native  version  of  Adam  forms  was  embodied  by  a  Mas- 

^  "Catalogue  of  All  the  Books  Published  in  the  United  States"  (1804),  reprinted  in  A.  Growoll,  "Book 
Trade  Bibliography  in  the  United  States"  (1898).  Besides  "The  Practical  Builder,"  Boston  (1792),  and 
"The  Practical  House  Carpenter,"  Boston  (1796)  and  Philadelphia  (1797),  these  include  "The  Builder's  Easy 
Guide"  and  "The  Builder's  Pocket  Treasure." 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

sachusetts  builder,  Asher  Benjamin,  in  his  first  two  works:  "The  Country  Builder's 
Assistant"  (Greenfield,  1796)'  and  the  "American  Builder's  Companion"  (Bos- 
ton, 1806).-     In  the  more  literal  revival  of  Roman  and  Greek  forms  the  publica- 


?,SSSiis:siS*5&-. 


^«f-i.-»v^       .'i_t(t/,  ^f'«-     -«/^^   /.'»    ,!?.    -t^^./tu^.    ■■' 


1*^ 


^i|   cijw*Y- 


L.i £ 


vvv' 


C  M...^u/!f..l'.     /..' 


/*r 


.4'/- 


it-*.. 
/r.a 


'j^% 


<:.     t  \S 


Figure  113.     Sketch  for  the  Markoe  house,  Philadelphia.     Benjamin  Henry  Latrobe,  1808 
From  the  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of  Ferdinand  C.  Latrobe 

tions  of  ancient  monuments  were  indispensable.    To  supplement  the  drawings  of 
Roman  buildings  by  Palladio  and  Desgodetz^  had  come  since  the  middle  of  the 

'  Reissued  1797,  1798,  1805.  -  Reissued,  with  lower  proportions  for  the  orders,  1820. 

'Jefferson  acquired  a  copy  in  1791.      Cj.  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  p.  93. 


151 


AMERICAN    DO  M  ESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


eighteenth  century  those  ot  Greek  and  eastern  temples.  The  Library  Company  of 
Philadelphia  had  already  acquired  by  1770  copies  of  the  first  volume  of  Stuart's 
"Antiquities  of  Athens"  (1762),  of  Major's  "Ruins  of  Paestum"  (1768),  and  of 
Wood's  "Palmyra"  and  "Balbec."  Jefferson  secured  many  ot  the  same  works  be- 
tween 1785  and  1795.^ 

In  one  way  or  another  the  new  forces  were  felt  everywhere  within  a  few  years 
after  the  Revolution,  but  there  was  independent  initiative  in  the  several  sections, 

and   considerable   resulting    diversity. 


The  different  strands — inspiration  from 
the  classic,  whether  directly  or  through 
the  English  version  of  Pompeian  deco- 
ration, influence  from  France  toward 
freer  composition  of  plan  and  space — 
were  variously  interwoven.  The  South, 
under  Jefferson's  leadership,  was  first 
to  feel  the  direct  classicism  ot  the  re- 
vivalists, hut  in  the  end  the  temple 
torm  and  Greek  detail  everywhere  pre- 
vailed. 

For  the  evolution  ot  the  style  we 
have  a  source  ot  knowledge  scarcely 
available  in  the  Colonial  period.  To 
supplement  the  buildings  still  remain- 
ing, and  mitigate  the  historical  loss  by 
destruction,  there  are  preserved  not 
only  engravings  and  photographs,  but 
large  numbers  of  the  original  drawings 
and  designs.  Many  of  these  bear  a 
date  and  a  signature,  so  that  a  new 
precision  is  possible  in  attributions,  as 
well  as  clearer  light  on  the  nature  ot  the  artistic  intent. 

The  materials,  brick  and  wood,  remained  largely  the  same  as  in  Colonial  times, 
disguising  the  fundamental  contrast  which  often  exists  between  the  forms  ot  the 
two  periods.  Brick  houses  became  more  common  in  the  New  England  towns, 
their  great  increase  in  Salem  coming  about  1805.-    The  number  ot  houses  of  cut 

'Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  pp.  34,  note,  92-101. 

-"List  of  Brick  Buildmgs  Standing  in  Salem  at  the  Beginning  of  1806,"  Salem  Gazette,  February  4,  1806. 

152 


ii     ':  »  0  9  •  •  •  •  •. 

1;  ^ii-..-^/-^"<^-^/~/ 


Copyright  igi6,  I'y  Ciufa  A"icyy  O'l'iVi/j-c 

Figure  114.     Study  for  remodelling  the  Gov- 
ernor's Palace,  Williamsburg.     Thomas 
Jefferson,  about  1779 

From  the  original  drawing  in  the  Coolidge  Collection 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 


stone  grew  slightly,  but  they  were  still  to  be  counted  almost  on  one  hand:  the 
President's  house  in  Washington,  the  Parkman  and  David  Sears  houses  in  Boston, 
Colonnade  Row  in  New  York.  The  house  begun  in  179J  by  Robert  Morris  in 
Philadelphia  was  unique  in  being,  in  large  part,  ot  marble.  In  the  treatment  even 
of  materials  previously  used,  however,  there  were  some  characteristic  innovations 
as  time  went  on.  Chief  of  these  was  the  increasing  use  ot  stucco,  sometimes  ruled 
to  imitate  ashlar.  An  early  example  is  Solitude  in  Philadelphia,  1784.  The  great 
vogue  of  stucco,  however,  really  began 


after  1800,  with  the  buildings  of  La- 
trobe  and  his  pupil  Mills,  under  the  in- 
fluence of  Soane.  By  the  'thirties  red 
brick  was  scarcely  shown  any  more. 
In  New  England,  where  stucco  was  not 
adopted,  the  brick  was  painted  gray. 
Some  important  houses  where  such 
painting  seems  to  have  been  done  at 
an  early  date  are  Franklin  Crescent  in 
Boston,  the  Gore  house  in  Waltham, 
and  the  Andrew  (Safford)  house  in 
Salem.  In  the  North,  where  wood 
continued  to  be  used  tor  pretentious 
houses,  it  was  also  common  tor  the  fa- 
cade to  be  covered' with  smooth  board- 
ing with  close  joints,  instead  ot  clap- 
boards or  shingles.  This  innovation 
appears  in  the  wooden  front  added  by 
Mclntire  after  1789  to  the  Pickman 
(Derby)  house  on  Washington  Street,  Figure  115.  Plan  of  the  Villa  Rotonda  for  Almerico 
Salem,  and  is  a  familiar  feature  in  the  From  Palladio,  Book  II,  plate  14 

work  of  Bulfinch  and  his  followers. 

The  new  standard  of  convenience,  first  embodied  by  the  French  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  century,  brought  many  improvements  in  the  provisions  of  houses  after 
the  Revolution.  The  old  scheme  of  a  transverse  stair  hall  dividing  tour  nearly 
equal  rooms  of  uncertain  destination,  lingered  on  until  1800  or  even  later,  but  it 
tended  to  give  place  to  more  flexible  arrangements,  varying  with  the  orientation, 
and  having  more  varied  elements,  more  compact  circulation,  and  greater  privacy. 

Differentiation   in   the   functions  of  rooms  and   adaptation  ot   the  individual 

153 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

room  to  its  specific  use  proceeded  much  further  than  in  Colonial  houses.  No  other 
document  is  so  enlightening  here  as  the  memorandum  prepared  by  JefFerson  in 
1792  detailing  the  accommodations  desirable  for  the  President's  house  in  Wash- 
ington: 

President's  house 

Antichamber  area 10      squares  of  hill  elevation 

Audience  room 15 

Parlours  i  of 15 

I  of 10 

Dining  Room     i  of 10 

60  squares  of  full  elevation 

Parlours  i  of 7^2 

I  of 5 

Dining  Room     i  of 5 

Study 5 

Library 10 

Clerks  rooms  2 10 

Bedrooms  with  antl-chamb.  & 

Dressing  room  to  each — 4  of 32 

Bedrooms  single     6 24 

Making  altogether  squares  of 

half  elevation  to  be  counted  as  49/^ 

109     squares  or 
105  f.  sq. 

Servants  apartments,  the  kitchen  and  Its  appurtenances  to  be  in  an  Interval  of  7  f. 
pitch  between  the  floor  of  the  house  and  cellars,  consequently  to  be  sunk  a  foot  or  two 
beneath  the  surface  of  the  earth. 

Cellar,  woodrooms  etc.  to  be  below  the  servants  apartments. 

Estimated  in  squares  of  10  feet  or  100  square  feet.' 

Although  the  provision  of  state  dining-room  and  private  dining-room,  public  and 
family  parlors,  and  clerks'  rooms  here  is  due  to  the  official  character  of  the  house, 
the  number  and  variety  ot  the  rooms  otherwise  do  not  surpass  those  of  many  fine 
private  houses  of  the  time,  such  as  the  Woodlands  (figure  109),  the  Harrison  Gray 
Otis  house  on  Beacon  Street,  Boston  (figure  no),  or  the  Van  Ness  house  in  Wash- 
ington (figure  III). 

'District  of  Columbia  Papers,  Department  of  State,  vol.  6,  part  2,  no.  138. 

154 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

Refinements  in  the  accommodations  of  the  sleeping-rooms  were  the  provision 
of  one  or  more  with  an  alcove  for  the  bed,  or  with  a  separate  dressing-room.  Both 
these  features  were  practically  unknown  in  America  before  the  Revolution,  al- 
though Jefferson  in  1771  had  written  "Dressing  Room"  in  the  large  room  preced- 
ing the  bedroom  in  his  plan  for  Monticello.  The  chambre  a  V alcove,  an  invention  of 
the  French  under  Louis  XIV,  was  exceptional  in  England,  although  occasional  ex- 
amples may  be  found  from  the  time  of  Wren  onward.  It  occurred  increasingly  in 
English  books  toward  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century.'  At  the  same  time  it 
appeared  in  American  designs,  earliest  perhaps  in  1788  at  the  Woodlands,  where 
three  of  the  bedrooms  have  an  alcove.  Jefferson,  fresh  from  France,  introduced  it 
in  his  house  in  New  York,  1789,-  and  actively  advocated  it,^  including  it  in  numer- 
ous designs.  At  least  in  his  own  houses,  Monticello  and  Poplar  Forest,  the  alcoves 
were  actually  built.  Other  designers  also  favored  the  scheme,''  and  Latrobe  em- 
ployed it  in  the  Van  Ness  house  in  Washington,  built  18 13-18 19.  Suites  of  bed- 
rooms and  dressing-rooms,  sometimes  with  two  bedrooms  and  a  small  vestibule, 
were  provided  in  the  Woodlands,  the  Van  Ness  house,  and  the  Harrison  Gray  Otis 
house.  Beacon  Street,  built  by  Bulfinch  in  1807. 

A  shallow  recess  in  the  dining-room  for  the  sideboard  was  another  character- 
istic feature  of  houses  after  1795.  Jefferson  used  it  in  remodelling  Monticello  in 
1796;  Bulfinch,  in  the  house  for  Ezekiel  Hersey  Derby  in  Salem  by  1799;  Alexan- 
der Parris,  in  houses  in  Portland  from  1805  and  in  the  David  Sears  house  in  Boston 
in  1 8 16;  Latrobe,  in  the  Van  Ness  house  and  elsewhere. 

The  elements  of  circulation  were  also  elaborated,  at  the  same  time  that  the 
entrance  hall,  reception  rooms,  living  quarters,  and  service  arrangements  were 
segregated,  in  the  plans  of  leading  designers,  with  a  care  hitherto  unthought  of. 
Lateral  passages  or  corridors  were  provided,  especially  in  houses  of  increased 
length,  such  as  the  Woodlands,  the  White  House  in  Washington  (figure  119),  Mon- 
ticello as  remodelled,  and  the  Van  Ness  house,  giving  a  degagement  from  the  corner 
rooms  to  the  hall.  The  main  stairway  tended  to  be  secluded  from  the  entrance 
hall,  where  it  had  invited  even  the  chance  comer  to  the  upper  rooms.  In  some 
cases  where  it  remained  in  direct  connection  with  the  hall,  it  was  at  least  pushed 
to  one  side  in  a  compartment  of  its  own,  as  at  the  Woodlands.  This  was  a  favorite 
arrangement  with  Bulfinch,  which  he  used  in  his  own  house  and  in  the  plan  he 

'J.  Paine,  "Plans  of  Noblemen  and  Gentlemen's  Houses"  (1783),  pi.  42;  G.  Richardson,  "Original  De- 
signs for  Country  Seats"  (1795),  pis.  37,  55,  etc. 

-  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  p.  47  and  fig.  121. 

^  See  his  letter  to  Madison,  May  19,  1793,  //-'.,  p.  56. 

■■  It  occurs  in  the  designs  of  unknown  authorship  reproduced  in  F.  Cousins  and  Riley:  "The  Woodcarver 
of  Salem"  (1916),  facing  p.  29;  and  in  Latrobe's  plan  for  completing  the  White  House,  1807. 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


made  in  1795  tor  Elias  Hasket  Derby;  it  was  widely  imitated  in  New  England,  for 
instance  in  the  Hollister  house  at  Greenfield,  attributed  to  Asher  Benjamin  and  to 
1797,  and  in  the  houses  at  Portland  by  Alexander  Parris  from  iSc;  (figure  112). 
Still  further  in  the  direction  of  seclusion  were  stairs  opening  from  the  lateral  pas- 
sages, as  in  the  White  House,  in  Monticello,  in  the  Swan  house  in  Dorchester, 
Massachusetts  (figure  122),  in  Thornton's  most  elaborate  study  for  Tudor  Place 
in  Georgetown,  and  in  the  \an  Ness  house,  ranging  in  date  from  1793  to  18 13.  So 
ingrained  is  the  Colonial  tradition  in  the  matter  that  this  retired  position  of  the 

stairways  at  Monticello  is  still 
ascribed  to  absent-mindedness  of 
the  "philosopher"  Jefferson. 

For  service  a  second  stair  grad- 
ually became  universal.  Where  the 
kitchen  was  in  the  basement,  as 
was  often  the  case,  the  back  stairs 
connected  it  with  the  dining-room, 
either  directly,  as  in  the  Perez  Mor- 
ton house  in  Roxbury,  or  through 
a  butler's  pantry,  as  in  the  Swan 
house  near  by,  the  Markoe  house 
in  Philadelphia  (figure  113),  and 
the  Van  Ness  house.  A  butler's 
pantry  was  also  interposed  between 
dining-room  and  kitchen  where 
both  were  in  the  same  story;  in 
the  Crafts  house,  Roxbury,  and 
the  John  Gardner  house,  Salem,  both  from  1805.  Service  through  the  main  hall 
was  only  tolerated  in  the  best  houses  when  other  considerations  clearly  out- 
weighed this  disadvantage,  as  in  the  David  Sears  house  in  18 16  (figure  127). 

Orientation  and  exposure  of  the  rooms  were  considered  with  a  new  freedom 
horn  parti  pris.  Where  the  street  frontage  was  on  the  north,  it  was  not  uncommon 
for  the  chief  rooms  to  be  toward  the  rear,  constituting  a  "back  front"  or  garden 
front,  as  in  the  Derby,  Gore,  and  Brockenbrough  houses,  for  instance.  In  all  these 
the  hall  was  not  carried  through  to  the  garden  side,  but  the  desirable  exposure  there 
was  used  for  a  file  of  rooms  en  suite.  So  much  preferred  did  such  an  arrangement 
become  that  in  some  cases  where  the  best  exposure  was  toward  the  street  the  hall 
was  displaced  from  the  centre  to  leave  it  free  for  the  living-rooms.     In  the  Swan 

156 


1 .4tnory'  Coolitf^i 


Figure  1 16.    Study  for  .t  Governor's  house  in  Richmond 

on  the  model  of  Palladio's.     Thomas  Jefferson 

about  1783 

From  the  original  drawiiif;  in  the  Coolidge  Collection 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

house  the  entrances  are  at  the  ends  of  the  front,  ui  the  Harrison  Gray  Otis  house 
on  Mount  Vernon  Street,  Boston,  1800,  and  in  the  David  Sears  house,  18 16,  the  door 
is  moved  to  the  eastern  side.  Where  the  street  ran  north  and  south,  or  in  any  case 
when  the  lot  was  relatively  narrow,  the  house  might  be  turned  end  to  the  street, 
facing  on  a  side  yard.  This  was  a  scheme  inaugurated  by  Bulfinch,^  and  followed, 
among  others,  by  Mclntire  in  the  Dow  and  Felt  houses  at  Salem  in  1809-18 10. 


Figure  117.     Study  for  the  Government  House,  New  York  City.     John  McComb,  1789 
From  the  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of  the  New  York  Historical  Society 

The  great  majority  of  houses  continued  to  have  all  the  living-rooms  on  the 
same  floor  with  the  entrance  hall.  A  certain  number  had  the  living-rooms  divided 
between  that  floor  and  the  one  above,  as  had  occasionally  been  the  case  before  the 
Revolution.  They  included  not  only  houses  in  Charleston,  of  which  this  scheme 
had  been  particularly  characteristic,  but  others  elsewhere,  such  as  the  Morton 
house  in  Roxbury,  by  Bulfinch.    The  tendency,  French  in  ultimate  origin,  was  to 

'See  the  design,  watermarked  1796,  witli  his  handwriting,  published  by  Cousins  and  Riley,  "The  Wood- 
carver  of  Salem,"  facing  p.  23,  and  wrongly  attributed  to  Mclntire. 


157 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

place  the  more  important  rooms  en  suite  in  a  bel  etage  up  one  story,  the  entrance 
being  at  the  ground  level.  This  was  the  arrangement  in  the  houses  of  great  leaders 
of  fashion  such  as  that  of  William  Bingham,  of  Philadelphia  (figure  170),^  built  be- 
fore 1788,  and  of  Harrison  Gray  Otis  in  Boston,  built  on  Beacon  Street  in  1807,  as 
well  as  in  such  other  aristocratic  houses  as  that  of  Jonathan  Mason  on  Mount  Ver- 
non Street  and  those  on  Park  Street.  All  of  these  Boston  town  houses  were  the 
work  of  Bulfinch. 

These  tendencies  to  specialization  and  flexibility  of  arrangement  were  limited 
in  their  application  by  the  counter-tendency  to  ideal  classic  symmetry.    When  the 


Figure  118.     "Plan  of  a  mansion  for  a  person  of  distinction" 

From  Crunden's  Convenient  and  Ornamental  Architecture  (1785).     The  protot\'pe  of  McComb's  design  for 

the  Government  House 


exterior  mass  was  the  first  consideration,  convenience  might  have  to  be  subordi- 
nated and  some  ot  its  new  possibilities  sacrificed.  Even  then,  however,  the  situa- 
tion was  scarcely  different  from  that  of  Colonial  days.  The  tour-square  Colonial 
house  was  as  schematic  in  arrangement  as  the  revivalist  temple.  The  interplay  of 
the  formal  tendency  with  the  practical  we  have  now  to  trace. 

In  form,  the  really  significant  houses  of  the  new  republic  belong  to  several  novel 
and  distinct  general  types.  Two  of  these  were  based  on  classical  ideals,  the  more 
important  of  them  modelled  on  the  temple:  a  simple  rectangular  mass  with  a  col- 
umnar portico  of  its  full  width  and  height,  crowned  by  a  pediment.  Its  beginnings 
fall  during  the  blackest  days  of  the  Revolution,  in  one  of  the  earliest  designs  made 

'  C/.  the  description  in  Griswold,  "Republican  Court"  (1856),  p.  262. 

158 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

in  the  independent  states.  About  1779  Jefferson,  on  becoming  governor  ot  Vir- 
ginia, made  studies  for  the  remodelHng  of  the  old  Governor's  Palace  at  Williams- 
burg. Of  these,  the  one  obviously  representing  an  ideal  (figure  114),  recognized 
as  beyond  immediate  reach,  shows  a  portico  on  either  face  eight  columns  broad, 
with  the  legend  "Pediment  front  whole  width  of  roof."  The  idea  of  imitating  the 
form  of  the  temple  in  a  domestic  building  was  at  this  time  quite  absent  abroad. 


,*0    ^. 


_j^ 


Co^yriffht  1016,  by  Ciara  Amory  Coolidgc 

Figure  119.     Accepted  plan  for  the  President's  house,  Washington.      James  Hoban,  1792 
From  the  original  drawing  in  the  Coolidge  Collection 


Playful  reproductions  of  temples  had  indeed  been  built  in  the  English  landscape 
gardens  since  the  time  of  Vanbrugh,  and  Campbell  had  proposed  in  the  "Vitruvius 
Britannicus,"  a  church  on  the  model  of  a  temple,  "Prostile,  Hexastile,  Eustyle,"  ^ 
but  anything  so  radical  as  a  dwelling-house  on  these  lines  had  not  been  sviggested 
by  the  most  ardent  foreign  classicist.  For  the  moment  the  idea  couki  not  germi- 
nate. It  was  years,  indeed,  before  Jefferson  himself  advanced  it  again  in  so  un- 
compromising a  form.     It  is  important  to  note,  however,  that  even    before   his 

'  Vol.  2,  pi.  27,  and  p.  2. 


AMERICAN    DOMESTICARCHITECTURE 

foreign  journey  and  his  epochal  design  tor  the  \'irginia  Capitol,  he  had  tormuiated 
the  ideal  which  was  ultimately  to  rule  in  American  domestic  architecture. 

Almost  equally  early,  and  from  the  same  hand,  came  the  suggestion  of  the  other 
ideal  type  of  the  Palladians  and  classicists,  the  rotonda :  a  building  symmetrical  in 
all  directions  about  a  central  vertical  axis,  and  preferably  crowned  by  a  dome. 
Its  ultimate  basis  was  the  Roman  circular  temple,  which  Jefferson  regarded  as  the 
model  of  "Spherical,"  as  the  rectangular  temple  was  of  "Cubic  architecture."^ 
The  modern  embodiment  in  domestic  architecture,  the  villa  rotonda,  suggested  in 
the  designs  of  Giuliano  da  San  Gallo  and  Serlio,  had  been  first  completely  devel- 


Figure  120.      Barrell  house,  Charlestown,  Massachusetts.      Plans.      Charles  Bulfinch,   1792 

From  drawings  by  Ogden  Codman 

oped  and  executed  by  Palladio  in  the  famous  villa  for  Paolo  Almerico  near  Vicenza 
(figures  115  and  132).  A  square  mass  with  four  porticos,  about  a  circular,  domi- 
cal hall  lighted  from  above,  the  monumental  features  actually  exceeding  in  area 
the  rooms  for  use — it  is  a  scheme  less  practical  than  purely  ideal,  an  extreme  ex- 
pression of  abstract  enthusiasm  for  classical  form. 

From  Palladio's  plates  the  scheme  was  copied  in  northern  Europe,  with  a  lit- 
eralness  or  a  freedom  of  modification  dependent  on  the  ciegree  of  academic  fervor. 
In  the  royal  pavilion  at  Marly  (1680-1686),  the  most  purely  ideal  of  the  buildings 
of  Louis  XR^,  the  absolute  identity  of  the  four  sides  was  retained,  but  the  exterior 
dome  and  the  projecting  porticos  were  alike  omitted,  while  pilasters  of  the  full 
height  of  the  walls  were  carried  entirely  around.  In  England,  at  least  four  houses 
of  the  type  were  projected  in  the  decade  from  1720  to  1730,  generally  with  some  or 

^  "Account  of  the  Capitol  of  V'irginia,"  in  "Works"  edited  b\'  Lipscomb  and  Bergh,  vol.  5,  p.  134. 

160 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

even  all  of  the  porticos  omitted,  and  with  other  concessions  to  economy  or  use. 
Two,  however,  retained  an  exterior  dome:  Mereworth  Castle,  by  Colin  Campbell, 
following  Palladio's  plate  ot  the  villa  tor  Almerico  with  the  utmost  literalness 
throughout;  Lord  Burlington's  villa  at  Chiswick,  otherwise  less  complete,  having 
an  octagonal  saucer  dome  with  steps. 

Among  Jefferson's  studies  after  the  transfer  of  the  government  of  Virginia  to 
Richmond,  when  he  was  chairman  ot  the  Directors  ot  the  Public  Buildings  (1780- 


Figure  121.     Jonathan  Mason  house,  Boston 
From  an  old  lithograph.     Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 


1783),  apparently  for  a  Governor's  house  there,  is  the  quarter-plan  of  such  a  villa 
rotonda  (figure  116).^  Although  somewhat  reduced  in  scale  and  showing  but  a  sin- 
gle frontispiece  of  four  columns,  it  follows  exactly  the  interior  arrangement  of  Pal- 
ladio's ciesign.  Like  the  temple  scheme,  this  plan  did  not  come  to  execution  at 
the  time,  but  it  was  not  forgotten,  as  we  shall  see,  and  was  destined  ultimately  to 
have  an  important  future  in  America. 

Earlier  than  these  classical  types  in  its  embociiment  in  executed  buildings  was 
a  scheme  of  which  the  inspiration  was  essentially  French.    This  was  the  plan  with 

'  Cf.  Kimball,  "  Ihonias  Jefferson,  Architect"  pp.  33  and  140. 

161 


A\vlERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

a  projecting  saloon,  occupying  a  place  of  honor  in  the  centre  of  a  garden  front, 
opposite  the  entrance.  Created  by  Le  Vau  at  Vaux-le-Vicomte  under  Louis  XIV, 
the  type,  with  an  elliptical  salon,  was  adopted  almost  universally  in  France  in  the 
style  of  Louis  XV,  and  became  the  favorite  device  of  the  rococo  in  Germany,  at 
Sans  Souci  (1745),  Solitude,  and  Monrepos  (1764).  In  England,  the  scheme,  with 
an  octagonal  saloon,  had  been  illustrated  in  some  of  Robert  Morris's  books,  "  Archi- 


FiM,T  FuaoR,  Plan 


Figure  122.     Swan  house,  Dorchester,  Massachusetts 
From  a  measured  drawing  by  Ogden  Codman 


tecture  Improved"  (1755)  and  "Select  Architecture"  (1759).  Made  classical  by 
using  a  circular  room  surrounded  by  columns  and  surmounted  by  a  saucer  dome, 
it  was  adopted  by  James  Paine  in  his  unexecuted  design  for  the  garden  facade  of 
Kedieston  (1761),  and  by  Robert  Adam  in  the  River  House  at  Sion.  In  this  classi- 
cal form  it  appeared  in  France  in  the  Hotel  de  Thelusson,  built  1780,  and  the 
Hotel  de  Salm,  1782-1786. 

The  house  with  the  projecting  saloon  had  likewise  owed  its  introduction  in 
America  to  Jefferson,  who,  as  we  have  seen,  adopted  an  octagonal  projection  in 

162 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

building  Monticello  (figure  52)  just  before  the  Revolution.  It  was  taken  up  inde- 
pendently by  others,  who  were  the  first  to  employ  the  curved  projection.  This  ap- 
pears in  both  the  lateral  facades  of  the  Woodlands,  as  remodelled  in  1788:  a  house 
which,  although  somewhat  limited  in  the  central  part  by  existing  walls,  is  remark- 
able in  its  freedom  and  novelty  of  composition  in  plan,  both  as  regards  convenience 
and  privacy,  and  as  regards  variety  of  spatial  effects  (figures  109  and  196).    The 


Figure  123.     Swan  house,  Dorchester 
Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 


entrance  is  to  a  circular  vestibule  surrounded  by  columns,  with  niches  on  the  diag- 
onals. To  the  left,  beyond  the  stairs,  and  to  the  right,  are  the  great  drawing-room 
and  the  dining-room,  one  elliptical,  the  other  with  semicircular  ends,  both  jutting 
out  boldly  on  the  exterior.  Beyond  the  vestibule  is  the  saloon,  likewise  with  semi- 
circular ends.  It  does  not  itself  extend  beyond  the  plane  of  the  building,  but  has 
a  great  projecting  portico  in  the  centre  of  the  river  front. 

A  "grand  salone"  on  the  axis,  of  circular  form,  was  first  employed  by  John 
McComb  in  a  drawing  which  seems  to  belong  to  the  series  of  studies  he  made  for 
the  Government  House  in  New  York  in  1789  (figure  117).     It  is  the  most  elaborate 

163 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

of  the  group,  fully  commensurate  with  the  purpose  of  the  house  as  a  residence  ot 
the  President.  Identity  in  many  elements  leaves  no  doubt  that  the  design,  with 
the  saloon,  was  derived  from  plates  S-~53  (fig>-ire  ii8)  of  John  Crunden's  "Conve- 
nient and  Ornamental  Architecture"  (1785).  The  other  studies,'  progressively  less 
pretentious  as  they  approach  the  character  of  the  building  as  executed,  lack  the 
circular  saloon,  although  two  of  them  retain  a  projecting  bay,  octagonal  on  the  ex- 
terior, in  the  middle  of  the  garden  front.  Like  Crunden's  plan,  most  of  the  stud- 
ies of  McComb  have  one  or  more  interior  rooms  dependent  on  top  light. 

The  earliest  American  examples  of  the  scheme  with  an  elliptical  saloon  on  axis 
were  James  Hoban's  winning  competitive  design  for  the  President's  house  in  Wash- 
ington (figure  1 19)  and  Charles  Bulfinch's  for  the  house  of  Joseph  Barrell  in  Charles- 
town  (figure  120),  both  in  1792.  Hoban,  an  Irishman  by  birth,  had  some  train- 
ing as  a  youth  in  the  architectural  school  of  the  Dublin  Society,  and  had  been 
working  for  the  past  few  years  in  South  Carolina.'  His  design  for  the  President's 
house  was  derived  in  the  main,  as  we  have  shown  elsewhere,'  from  Gibbs's  "Book 
of  Architecture,"  plates  '^2  and  53.  From  Gibbs's  plan  Hoban  retained  on  the 
interior  only  the  arrangement  of  the  vestibule  and  adjoining  stairs.  In  the  centre 
of  the  garden  front,  where  Gibbs  has  a  long  drawing-room,  he  interpolated  an 
ellipse.  As,  however,  he  placed  this,  like  the  ellipse  at  the  Woodlands,  endwise  to 
the  facade,  it  was  inadequate  to  serve  as  the  main  reception-room,  necessarily 
located  elsewhere,  and  in  its  original  form  it  made  but  an  insignificant  projection 
on  the  exterior. 

In  the  Barrell  house,  on  the  other  hand,  as  in  the  leading  European  examples, 
the  ellipse  lies  lengthwise  of  the  garden  front.  Bulfinch  had  doubtless  seen  the 
W^oodlands  when  he  visited  Philadelphia  in  1789  and  dined  with  the  leading  fami- 
lies,'' but  he  had  made  the  tour  of  France  in  1786,  giving  special  attention  to  archi- 
tecture,^ and  it  may  be  assumed  that  his  inspiration  came  directly  from  abroad. 
The  plan,  as  reconstructed  on  ample  evicience,  places  the  stairs  in  the  centre  of  the 
house,  lighted  from  the  top,  so  that  vestibule,  stairs,  and  saloon  form  a  suite  of 
varied  spatial  effect  along  the  central  axis,  with  minor  rectangular  rooms  on  the 
flanks. 

In  the  later  development  of  the  more  ambitious  and  characteristic  houses,  the 
type  which  soonest  gained  a  strong  foothold  was  the  one  with  a  projecting  saloon, 

1  McComb  collection,  New  York  Historical  Society,  nos.  54-57- 

"  No  domestic  designs  of  his  there  have  yet  been  identified.     It  is  questionable,  also,  whether  any  of  the 
houses  therewith  curved  projections  were  prior  to  1792.     Cf.  Smith,  "Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston,"  ch.  VI. 
^  "The  Genesis  of  the  White  House,"  Century  Magazine,  vol.  95  (1918),  pp.  524-528. 
^  E.  S.  Bulfinch,  "Life  and  Letters  of  Charles  Bulfinch"  (1896),  pp.  75-76. 
5 /fe.,  pp.  42,  51. 

164 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBETC 

most  commonly  of  oval  or  circular  form.  Under  Bulfinch's  leadership  it  became 
especially  frequent  among  fine  houses  in  Boston  and  New  England.  He  himself 
seems  to  have  been  the  designer  ot  at  least  five  such  houses:  those  of  General 
Henrv  Knox  in  Thomaston,  Maine,  1793,  of  Perez  Morton  and  James  Swan  in 
Roxbury  and  Dorchester,  ascribed  to  1796  and  thereabouts,'  ot  Jonathan  Mason 
in  Boston,  and  of  Harrison  Gray  Otis  in  Watertown,  1809.  All  of  these  had  the 
projecting  saloon  in  the  centre  of  the  garden  front.  The  Knox  house  is  almost  a 
duplicate  in  plan  of  the  Barrell  house,  but  has  the  elliptical  bay  enclosed  in  the 


Figure  124.     Gore  house,  Waltham,  Massachusetts.     Garden  front.      Between  1799  and  1804 

Courtesy  of  Miss  N.  D.  Tupper 

second  story  as  well  as  in  the  first.  In  the  Mason  house  (figure  121)  it  rises 
through  all  three.  The  Morton  (Taylor)  house  has  an  octagonal  projecting  room, 
the  ellipse,  truncated  in  this  case  so  that  it  does  not  project,  being  reserved  for  the 
up-stairs  drawing-room.  The  Swan  house  (figures  122,  123,  and  146)  is  unique 
among  the  executed  houses  in  having  a  circular  room  as  the  projecting  feature, 
its  wall  rising  two  stories  on  the  exterior,  above  a  low  surrounding  colonnade 
which  crosses  the  front.  In  this  house  the  saloon  is  in  the  centre  of  the  entrance 
front,  with  the  entrances  themselves  pushed  to  either  side.  The  Gore  house  in 
Waltham  (figure  124),  as  rebuilt  between  1799  and  1804,  which  may  also  be  by 
Bulfinch,  not  only  has  a  projecting  elliptical  saloon,  hut  has  a  room  opposite  it,  on 

1  F.  S.  Drake,  "The  Town  of  Roxbury"  (1878,  reprint  1905),  p.  135. 

i6\ 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

the  entrance  front,  the  inner  side  of  which  is  eUiptical.    The  entrance  hall  and 
stairs  here  are  placed  at  one  end  of  the  tront. 

Samuel  Mclntire,  of  Salem,  whose  work  hitherto  had  continued  Colonial  tra- 
ditions, was  quick  to  take  a  leaf  from  Bulfinch's  book.    Among  his  drawings  are 


tus- 


Figure  125.     Design  for  a  country  house.     John  McComb,  about  1798  to  1800 
From  the  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of  the  New  York  Historical  Society 

sketches  from  the  oval  room  in  the  Barrell  house,  and  a  plan  of  the  Thomas  Ri 
sell  house  in  Charlestown  showing  its  elliptical  stair.  In  a  country  house  in  Wal- 
tham  for  Theodore  Lyman,  who  purchased  the  land  in  1793,  Mclntire  applied  his 
newly  acquired  vocabulary  of  spatial  forms  by  using  a  projecting  oval  room. 
Otherwise  the  plan  is  on  conventional  lines,  being  traversed  by  corridors.    As  sug- 

166 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 


gestions  for  the  famous  mansion-house  built  by  Elias  Hasket  Derby  in  1 795-1 799, 
the  owners  collected  designs  from  many  sources.  The  plan  made  for  it  by  Bulfinch 
has  a  suite  of  rectangular  rooms  across  the  garden  front,  approached  by  a  passage 
with  the  stairs  at  one  side.  Not  satisfied  with  this,  Mclntire,  who  made  the  final 
designs,  introduced  the  innovations  which  Bulfinch  had  made  elsewhere:  the  oval 
saloon  of  the  Barrell  house,  preceded  by  the  elliptical  stair  hall  of  the  Russell 
house,  making  an  axial  suite  of  great  variety  and  interest. 
.  In  other  parts  of  the  country  the  scheme  was  likewise  a  favorite.    Jefferson, 


Copyright  by  J.  B.  Lippincott  Co. 


Figure  126.     Plan  of  the  Russell  house 
Charleston.     Finished  iSii 

From  a  drawing  by  Albert  Simmons  in  Smith's 
Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston 


Figure  127.     David  Sears  house,  Boston 
1816.     Alexander  Parris,  Architect 

From  a  measured  drawing  by  Ogden  Codman 


whose  house  in  Paris  had  had  an  oval  sa!o7i  to  the  garden,^  twice  employed  it  in 
studies  and  designs,-  although  in  neither  case  does  it  seem  to  have  come  to  execu- 
tion. The  Hotel  de  Salm,  with  its  circular  salon,  which  he  so  greatly  admired, 
gave  him  one  idea  for  the  President's  house  in  Washington.^  Elliptical  saloons 
occur  among  the  designs  of  John  McComb,  of  New  York,  the  most  interesting 
(figure  125)*  being  datable  by  the  paper  employed  as  about  1798-1800.  It  has  the 
entrance  hall  and  stairs  at  one  end  of  the  front,  the  saloon  projecting  almost  its 

1  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  fig.  Ii8.  "  Ih.,  figs.  120  (1793  .'),  181  (1803). 

^  Ih.,  fig.  131.  ^McComb  collection,  New  York  Historical  Society,  no.  109. 

167 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


full  depth  on  the  garden  side,  surrounded  by  a  veranda  with  small  columns  much 
like  that  of  the  Swan  house.  In  Charleston  the  Nathaniel  Russell  house,  com- 
pleted before  1811,  has  an  oval  drawing-room,  projecting  endwise  with  a  polygonal 
exterior,  in  the  centre  of  the  garden  facade  (figure   126).     For  Tudor  Place  in 


^1" . -^v.raor.  ifS  vs--/^faiiibci.>iy  ^ 


/..    /  ■.  \'/''/.  \'/,  \ // /','/)      // (>/  '  S'/'! , ,, 


/'////.  i/j/.  /.  /■///.  I 


Figure  128.     Robert  Morris  house,  Chestnut  Street,  Philadelphia.     Pierre  Charles  L'Enfant 

1793  to  1801 

From  the  engraving  by  William  Birch,  1800 

Georgetown  Thornton  made  a  series  of  studies  with  oval  saloons  on  axis  which 
are  exceptional  for  rich  combination  of  elements  of  varied  shape. ^ 

In  other  houses  where  the  saloon  had  not  a  full  elliptical  or  circular  form,  it 
had  none  the  less  a  semicircular  or  segmental  enci  forming  a  projecting  bay.  This 
was  common  in  Soane's  "Plans"  (1788).     One  of  Jefferson's  ideal  studies  shows 

'  The  most  ambitious  is  published  by  G.  Brown,  Architectural  Record,  vol.  6  (1896),  p.  64.     Others  are  among 
the  Thornton  papers  in  the  Library  of  Congress,  Manuscripts  Division. 

168 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

the  form.'  His  disciple,  Robert  Mills,  used  it  in  the  Wickham  (Valentine)  house 
in  Richmond,  1812.  In  Boston  it  was  employed  by  Alexander  Parris  in  the  house 
he  designed  for  David  Sears  in  18 16  (figure  127). 

Sometimes  an  octagonal  or  semi-octagonal  room  was  the  central  projecting  fea- 
ture. Jefferson  continued  frequently  to  employ  it:  in  designs  believed  to  be  for 
Woodberry  Forest,  Orange  County,  Virginia,  the  estate  of  William  Madison,  1793,^ 


Figure  129.     The  Octagon,  Washington.     William  Thornton,  1798  to  1800 

in  those  for  rebuilding  Shadwell,  1 800-1 803,  for  Poplar  Forest  as  originally  proposed, 
and  that  of  Barboursville,  1817.^  The  scheme  also  occurs  many  times  in  the  ideal 
studies  which  Jefferson  made,  probably  during  his  return  voyage  to  America  in 
1789.'*     Bulfinch  also  used  it,  as  we  have  seen,  in  the  Morton  house,  1796. 

The  use  of  curved  elements  on  the  exterior  was  not  confined  to  emphasis  on  a 
central  saloon  toward  the  garden.    The  splendid  house  begun  by  L'Enfant  for  Rob- 

'  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  fig.  225. 

■  Cj.  ill.,  p.  56.      The  drawing  reproduced  there  as  fig.  171  has  been  thought  to  be  for  this  house.      If  so, 
It  was  modified  in  execution,  not  to  speak  of  later  remodellings. 

'  Ih.,  figs.  173,  185-192,  and  205-206  respectively.  *  lb.,  figs.  217-224,  230. 

169 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

ert  Morris  (figure  128),  1 793-1 801,  had  end  "pavilions"  with  curved  faces,  analo- 
gous to  those  of  the  Hotel  Moras  (Biron)  in  Paris.  The  last  of  the  town  houses 
built  by  Bulfinch  in  1807  for  Harrison  Gray  Otis,  on  Beacon  Street,  Boston,  on  a 
restricted  site,  has  an  oval  drawing-room  at  one  side  overlooking  the  rear  garden. 
The  Joseph  Manigault  house  in  Charleston,  repvited  to  have  been  designed  by 
Gabriel  Manigault,  has  the  dining-room  ending  in  a  curved  bay,  and  the  stairs  in 
a  semicircular  bay  at  the  front.    The  Middleton-Pinckney  house  at  Charleston  has 


Figure  130.     Van  Ness  house,  Washington.      Front  elevation.     Benjamin  Henry  Latrobe 

1813  to  1819 

From  a  measured  drawing  by  Ogden  Codman 

similar  features.  Sometimes  in  a  pair  ot  symmetrical  houses  a  bay  was  placed  at 
either  end  of  the  front,  as  in  the  house  at  55  Beacon  Street,  Boston,  long  occupied 
by  the  historian  Prescott,  or  the  one  formerly  standing  at  Summer  and  Arch 
Streets,  the  home  of  Edward  Everett.  A  special  group  is  formed  by  the  town 
houses  on  corner  lots  which  have  a  corner  entrance  in  a  circular  pavilion.  The 
most  noted  of  these  is  the  so-called  Octagon  House  in  Washington  (figure  129), 
designed  by  Thornton  for  John  Tayloe,  and  built  in  1 798-1 800.  As  in  the  case  of 
Tudor  Place,  Thornton  made  an  elaborate  series  of  preliminary  studies.  The  plan 
selected  for  execution  has  a  circular  vestibule  on  the  corner,  with  the  stair  hall 


170 


LijjlI I I L 


a;~zp3 


Figure  131.     Competitive  design  for  the  President's  house,  Washington 
Thomas  Jefferson,  1792 

From  the  original  drawins  in  the  possession  of  the  Mar\hind  Historical  Society 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

behind  it  on  the  diagonal  axis,  between  wings  with  rectangular  rooms.  The  Richter 
house  at  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  was  substantially  similar  in  mass,  except 
for  a  veranda  with  light  columns  around  the  circular  bay. 

The  octagonal  bow  also  appeared  in  other  combinations.  The  study  of  these 
specially  fascinated  Jefferson,  as  his  ideal  sketches  reveal.^  At  Farmington,  1803, 
and  Ampthill  in  Cumberland  County,  Virginia,  1815,  he  terminated  the  facade 
with  lateral  bays.-  In  a  number  of  studies  about  1809,  he  used  a  pair  of  similar 
bays  facing  the  front,  with  the  entrance  recessed  between.^     Some  of  these  studies 


Figure  132.     Elevation  of  the  Villa  Rotonda  for  Almerico 
From  Palladio,  Book  II,  plate  15 

show  also  a  central  octagon  bay  in  the  rear.  The  type  became  a  popular  one  in 
Richmond,  witness  a  description  of  houses  there  in  the  middle  of  the  century: 
"Others  appear  to  be  triangles  made  of  three  two  story  hexagonal  towers,  with  a 
portico  filling  up  the  open  space  at  the  base  of  the  triangle,  and  the  pointed  roofs 
joining  one  another.  This  style  seems  to  have  effected  a  large  number  of  the  houses 
of  the  city  of  any  great  age,  giving  them  and  it  a  singular  appearance." "*  At  least 
two  examples  still  exist  in  Richmond,  the  Hancock  (Caskie)  house  at  the  corner 
of  Main  and  Fifth  Streets  and  the  McRae  house,  which  assumed  its  present  form 
by  1809,''  at  the  corner  of  Ninth  and  Marshall  Streets. 

'  Cf.  especially  figs.  216  and  217  in  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect." 

-  lb.,  figs.  183-184,  and  203-204.  •''  lb.,  figs.  198-202. 

■•J.  P.  Little,  "Richmond"  (1851).  '^  Data  kindly  furnished  by  Edward  V.  Valentine. 

172 


Figure  133.     Poplar  Forest,  Bedford  County,  Virginia.     Plan  and  elevation 

Thomas  Jefferson,  1806  to  1809 

From  a  drawing  by  Cornelia  Jefferson  Randolph  in  the  possession  of  the  University  of  Virginia 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


t     f      i     ii 


I  I  I 


ala: 


JCif.-nU^  i.-j/^ 


Projecting  pavilions  of  merely  rect- 
angular form  likewise  continued  in  some 
currency.  Aside  from  frontispieces  of 
columns  or  pilasters  only  on  an  un- 
broken wall,  there  are  shallow  central 
projections  on  a  half  dozen  important 
houses.  The  early  ones,  such  as  the 
John  Brown  and  Joseph  Nightingale 
houses  in  Providence,  have  pediment- 
crowned  pavilions  which  are  very  nar- 
row relative  to  their  height  of  three 
stories — as  in  the  Chase  house  just  be- 
fore the  Revolution.  In  the  Morton 
and  Crafts  houses  in  Roxbury,  after 
1800,  and  in  the  Wickham  house  in 
Richmond,  1812,  the  buildings  are 
lower,  the  bays  wicier.  Pairs  of  end 
pavilions,  found  in  Colonial  America 
only  in  the  Governor's  house  at  An- 
napolis, terminated  the  entrance  fronts 
of  the  Woodlands,  the  President's 
house  at  Philadelphia,  and  both  fronts 
of  the  Van  Ness  house  (figure  130). 

The  rototida  plan  which  Jefferson 
had  proposed  for  the  Governor's  house 
at  Richmond  was  the  form  which  he 
finally  preferred  for  the  President's 
house  in  Washington,  and  embodied  in 
an  anonymous  competitive  design  (fig- 
ure 131).'  It  closely  follows  the  Pal- 
ladian  prototype,  as  shown  in  Leoni's 
edition  of  his  works  (figure  132),  with 
the  tall  exterior  dome  and  all  four  por- 
ticos. Failing  of  selection  by  Wash- 
ington and  the  commissioners,  the  idea  was  later  embodied  by  Jefferson  in  an  un- 
executed design  for  which  Robert  Mills,  then  a  youth  under  his  instruction,  made 

'  Kimball,  "Thomas  JefFerson,  Architect,"  pp.  53,  154-156;  "The  Genesis  of  the  White  House,"  Century 
Magazine,  vol.  95  (1918),  pp.  524-528. 


Figure  134.     Octagonal  design  ascribed  to 
Inigo  Jones 

From  William  Kent's  Designs  of  Inigo  Jones  (1727) 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 


drawings  in  1803.'  The  scheme  was  too  purely  formal  in  its  balance  to  meet 
with  favor  until  ideals  of  abstract  unity  had  become  established  through  the 
strengthening  of  classical  influence  generally.  Not  until  after  central  balance  and 
a  central  dome  had  become  common  in  the  design  of  churches  and  other  buildings 
was  the  type  of  Palladio's  'ciUa  rotonda  adopted  in  dwelling-houses.  After  1830, 
however,  buildings  on  this  model — square,  with  a  central  hall,  circular  or  polygonal 


'—r- 


>-z;#- 


..<2r-■e^^^. 


l.-~ 


■'^ 


Figure  135.     Sketches  for  a  house  for  Robert  Liston.     Benjamin  Henry  Latrobe,  1800 
From  the  original  drawings  in  the  possession  of  Ferdinand  C.  Latrobe 

in  shape,  often  lighteci  from  above — became  numerous.  A  magnificent  example 
was  Belmont,  Nashville,  Tennessee,  designed  by  William  Strickland  about  1850, 
with  an  unbroken  cornice  supported  by  a  Corinthian  order.  Many  others  could 
be  cited,  such  as  Waverly,  near  Columbus,  Mississippi,  or  a  house  standing  until 
recent  years  on  the  hill  in  Providence,  Rhode  Island. 

Meanwhile  the  house  composed  about  a  central  axis  had  been  exemplified  in 
a  less  ambitious  form,  better  fitted  for  acceptation.     Before  1804  Jefl^erson  had 

'Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  fig.  l8l. 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

proposed  for  Pantops,  one  of  his  farms,  a  house  in  the  form  of  a  single  regular 
octagon,  and  this  he  erected  on  another  estate,  Poplar  Forest,  beginning  in  1806 
(figure  133).  Although  it  is  in  a  sense  the  logical  outcome  of  his  experiments  with 
octagons  and  with  the  rotonda  type  elsewhere,  the  direct  suggestion  seems  to  have 
come  from  a  design  ascribed  to  Inigo  Jones  (figure  134),'  showing  an  octagonal 
building  on  a  larger  and  more  elaborate  scale.  Jefferson's  simplification  was  ex- 
tremely ingenious,  giving  a  square  top-lighted  room  in  the  centre  and  octagonal- 


From  a  f/iotogrn/'h  hy  R.  It'.  H.^/an^fr 

Figure  136.      Pavilion  VII,  University  of  Virginia,  Charlottesville,  Virginia 

Thomas  Jefferson,  18 17 

ended  rooms  around  it,  meeting  at  the  central  point  on  each  side.  As  finally  devel- 
oped for  Poplar  Forest,  there  were  porticos  at  front  and  rear,  x-^lthough  octagonal 
churches  were  built  soon  after  by  Bulfinch  and  Mills,  the  octagonal  form  was  not 
widely  taken  up  for  houses  until  1850,  when  Orson  Squire  Fowler  popularized  it 
by  his  book,  "A  Home  for  All,  or  a  New,  Cheap  and  Superior  Mode  of  Building."- 
He  had  built  himself  a  house  on  the  Hudson  on  this  model  about  1844.  T"he  scheme 

'  Plate  17  in  vol.  2  of  W.  Kent,  "Designs  of  Inigo  Jones"  (1727),  a  book  which  Jefferson  owned. 
-  See  Fanny   Hale  Gardiner,    "The  Octagon  House,"    Country  Life  in  America,    vol.  it,    (March,    1913), 
pp.  79-80. 

176 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

then  had  an  enormous  following.  Octagonal  houses  were  scattered  everywhere,  in 
New  England,  in  the  Northwest,  many  still  with  Greek  detail.  Even  to-day  few 
old  Michigan  towns  are  without  one  or  more,  built  in  the  'fifties  and  'sixties.  In 
cruder  examples  the  bedrooms  are  arranged  around  a  central  chimney,  very  much 
like  so  many  pieces  of  pie. 

The  logical,  if  not  the  sensible,  extreme  of  the  rotonda  type  is  obviously  a  house 
in  the  form  of  a  circle.    Temples  or  casinos  ot  circular  form  were  features  of  the 


rr  pitstogrttfih  by  R.  W.  Hohntger 

Figure  137.      Pavilion  II,  "Ionic  of  Fortuna  Virilis,"  University  of  Virginia 

Thomas  Jefferson,  1818 


English  landscape  gardens,  and  were  imitated  on  the  Continent,  as  in  the  "Eng- 
lish Pavilion"  at  Pillnitz.  Some  of  these  pavilions  were  not  mere  summer-houses, 
but  had  living  accommodations  for  the  owner  and  two  or  three  servants.  John 
Plaw's  "Rural  Architecture,"  published  in  1794,  of  which  Bulfinch  owned  an  edi- 
tion,' included  drawings  of  a  circular  house  on  Lake  Windermere,  "designed  and 
built  by  the  author."  There  were  tew  of  the  leading  American  designers  who  did 
not  at  least  toy  with  such  an  idea.    Jefferson  made  a  sketch  as  early  as  1794,  as  a 

IE.  S.  Bulfinch,  "Charles  Bulfinch,"  p.  83. 

177 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

forerunner  of  the  Poplar  Forest  scheme,  of  a  casino  in  circular  form:  a  round  central 
room  with  a  colonnade  encircling  it  part-way,  the  remaining  segments  having 
two  elliptical  rooms  inscribed  in  them.^  McComb  devised  a  scheme  closely  simi- 
lar.=  Latrobe  designed  for  the  British  minister,  Robert  Liston,  in  1800,  a  circular 
casino  of  four  stories,  showing  the  greatest  ingenuity  in  interior  arrangements  (fig- 
ure 135)."     None  of  these  seem  to  have  reached  execution,  but  later  at  least  one 


Figure  13 8.     Arlington,  Alexandria  County,  Virginia 

such  was  erected,  the  Enoch  Robinson  house  at  Spring  Hill,  Somerville,  Massachu- 
setts. On  the  lower  floor  were  an  oval  parlor  and  a  circular  library;  up-stairs  the 
bedrooms  opened  on  a  central  rotunda.^ 

It  was  long  after  Jefferson's  first  suggestion  at  Williamsburg  before  the  temple 
was  again  taken  as  a  model  for  a  dwelling,  but  when  it  finally  was,  it  quickly  be- 
came the  universal  type.     Its  victory  was  rendered  possible  by  the  adoption  mean- 

1  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  fig.  133. 

-  McComb  collection.  New  \'ork  Historical  Society,  no.  254. 

'  Drawings  in  possession  of  Ferdinand  C.  Latrobe,  of  Baltimore. 

■•  Drawings  are  published  by  G.  E.  Woodward,  "The  House,  A  Manual  of  Rural  Architecture"  (1869),  at 
p.  92.  Cf.  the  description  in  "Notes  and  Queries"  of  the  Boston  Transcript,  1918,  no.  3895.  A  recent  account, 
with  a  photograph  and  drawings,  is  in  Old-Time  Ne:v  England,  vol.  11  (1921),  pp.  173-175- 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

while  of  the  form  of  the  temple  for  public  buildings,  without  real  parallel  abroad. 
Jefferson's  Virginia  Capitol  at  Richmond,  1785-1789,  modelled  on  the  Maison  Car- 
ree,  and  Latrobe's  Bank  of  Pennsylvania,  1799-1801,  with  the  Greek  order  of  the 
Erechtheum,  had  made  the  temple  form  familiar  and  had  habituated  people,  al- 


Figure  139.     Andalusia,  Bucks  County,  Pennsylvania.      Portico,  1834  to  1836 

Courtesy  of  Edward  Biddle 

ready  filled  with  classical  enthusiasm,  to  its  imitation  in  buildings  devoted  to 
practical  use.  The  step  of  building  a  house  like  a  temple  was  finally  taken  by  Jef- 
ferson himself  in  several  of  the  pavilions  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  which  he 
designed  "to  serve  as  specimens  of  orders  for  the  architectural  lectures."  To  be 
sure,  these  pavilions  were  not  houses  merely,  since  each  contained  the  classroom 

179 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

as  well  as  the  lodgings  of  a  professor,  bvit  with  the  enlarged  living  quarters  for 
men  with  families,  the  domestic  use  was  physically  the  more  important.  The  first 
pavilion  (figure  136),  which  followed  a  suggestion  from  William  Thornton,  itself 
had,  in  Jefferson's  conception  of  it  as  showing  itselt  above  the  dormitories,  the 
form  of  a  Doric  prostyle  temple  of  six  columns,  and  a  "pediment  the  whole 
breadth  of  the  front";  but  it  was  raised  above  a  story  of  arches,  giving  it  a  con- 
ventional academic  character.     The  next  two  pavilions,  which  followed  sugges- 


Figure  140.     Berry  Hill,  Halifax  County,  Virginia.     1835  ^'^  ''^4° 

tions  by  Latrobe,  having  columns  the  height  of  both  stories,  had  neither  of  them 
the  temple  pediment  of  full  width.  The  temple  form  in  its  entirety,  which  does 
not  appear  in  any  of  Latrobe's  sketches,  was  first  adopted  by  Jefferson  in  the 
fourth  pavilion  to  be  built,  begun  in  1819.  By  1822  three  such  temples,  the  Pa- 
vilions I,  II  (figure  137),  anci  IV  were  completed,'  each  with  four  columns  across 
the  front. 

It  was  not  long  before  the  new  example  began  to  be  followed  in  some  of  the 
most  pretentious  houses  elsewhere,  even  though  they  did  not  share  the  same  semi- 
public  functions  or  the  same  didactic  purpose.     George  Hadfield,  whose  training 

'  For  the  documents  and  drawings  concerning  the  design  and  building  of  the  university,  see  Kimball, 
"Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  pp.  74-77,  186-192;  W.  A.  Lambeth,  "Thomas  Jefferson  as  an  Architect" 
(1913)- 

180 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

in  Rome  had  given  him  a  preference  for  a  single  colossal  order,  already  evident  in 
his  proposals  for  the  Capitol,  carried  out  before  his  death  in  1826,  the  portico  of 
Arlington,  with  a  front  of  six  Greek  columns  of  enormous  massiveness,  modelled 
on  those  of  the  great  temple  at  Paestum  (figure  ij8).     Disproportionate  as  it  seems 


Figure  141.     Wilson  house,  Ann  Arbor,  Michigan.     After  1836 


from  near  at  hand,  no  other  house  than  Arlington  could  carry  so  well  across  the 
river  to  the  city,  Washington,  or  so  well  hold  its  own  at  the  other  end  of  a  com- 
position from  the  Capitol. 

The  extreme  step  in  the  imitation  of  the  temple,  the  adoption  ot  a  peristyle 
instead  of  merely  a  prostyle  arrangement,  was  taken  by  Nicholas  Biddle  in  rebuild- 


181 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

ing  his  country  house,  Andakisia,  in  1 834-1 836.  Biddle  had  been  in  his  youth  the 
first  American  to  travel  in  Greece,'  and  was  deeply  interested  in  the  fine  arts.  In 
his  magazine,  the  Po7't  Folio,  in  18 14  had  appeared  an  essay,  "On  Architecture," 
by  George  Tucker,  urging  an  uncompromising  imitation  of  Grecian  architecture.- 
For  the  Bank  of  the  United  States,  of  which  Biddle  became  a  director  in  18 19 
and  president  in  1823,  Latrobe  had  presenteci  in  181 8  a  design  based  on  the  Par- 


Figure  142.     Dexter  house,  Dexter,  Michigan.     1840  to  1843 

thenon,  which,  as  executed  with  little  change,  Biddle  greatly  admired.  Even  this, 
however,  lacked  the  lateral  colonnades,  which  Latrobe  considered  impractical  in 
a  modern  building.  No  such  consideration  restrained  Biddle  in  remodelling  his 
house,  to  which  he  added  a  wing  toward  the  Delaware  on  the  pattern  of  the  "The- 
seum,"  its  cella  flanked  as  well  as  fronted  by  columns  (figure  139). 

It  remained  only  to  model  a  house  on  the  Parthenon  itself,  with  its  front  of 
eight  columns  instead  of  six.    This  was  done  by  James  Coles  Bruce  at  his  planta- 

iW.  N.  Bates,  "Nicholas  Biddle's  Journey  to  Greece  in  1806,"  Proceedings  of  the  Numismatic  and  Anti- 
quarian Society  of  Philadelphia,  vol.  28  (1919),  pp.  167-183. 

2  Port  Folio,  n.  s.,  vol.  4  (1814),  pp.  559-569.     Cf.  P.  A.  Bruce,  "History  of  the  University  of  Virginia," 

vol.  2.  „ 

182 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

tion,  Berry  Hill,  in  Halifax  County,  Mrginia,  in  the  years  following  i8j5  (figure 
140).  Mr.  Bruce  spent  some  time  in  Philadelphia,  just  before  inheriting  the  estate 
and  undertaking  the  new  house,  and  was  influenced  by  Andalusia  in  his  choice  of 
a  type.^  The  porticos  were  carried  across  both  front  and  rear,  although  not  along 
the  flanks.  A  roof  with  pediments  on  the  fronts  was  scrupulously  provided,  although 
the  house  is  far  broader  than  it  is  deep.     On  either  side  of  the  great  lawn  are  the 


Figure  143.     Hill  house,  Athens,  Georgia 

office  and  schoolroom,  each  likewise  in  the  form  of  a  Greek  Doric  temple.  No- 
where else,  perhaps,  is  the  ante-bellum  plantation  to  be  found  in  equal  architec- 
tural magnificence. 

These  are  only  outstanding  examples.  A  host  of  others,  many  scarcely  inferior 
in  importance,  had  meanwhile  sprung  up  under  the  stimulus  of  enthusiasm  for 
things  Greek  given  by  the  War  of  Greek  Independence,  1 821-1827.  At  the  time 
of  the  Greek  war,  as  John  Bassett  Moore  has  pointed  out,  American  sympathy  was 
so  great  that  a  gentleman  from  western  New  York  declared  he  could  furnish,  from 
his  sparsely  settled  region,  "five  hundred  men,  six  feet  high,  with  sinewy  arms 

'His  nephew,  Philip  Alexander  Bruce,  the  distinguished  historian  of  Virginia,  informs  me  that  he  "often 
heard  it  stated  in  the  family  that  the  house  was  modelled  on  Andalusia. 

18.1 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

and  case-hardened  constitutions,  bold  spirits  and  daring  adventurers,  who  would 
travel  upon  a  bushel  of  corn  and  a  gallon  ot  whiskey  per  man  from  the  extreme 
part  of  the  world  to  Constantinople." 

No  one  region  had  any  special  monopoly  on  the  use  of  the  temple  form  for 
houses.  It  was  employed  in  New  England  quite  as  much  as  in  the  South.  The 
towns  which  prospered  in  the  'thirties  and  'forties,  such  as  the  whaling  ports  of 


TTfliK    ifftajr  iw  A,  WKinir 


-nrf  n  r^r.  •>   :^  r,  '■  y 


Figure  144.     Anderson  house,  Throgg's  Neck,  New  York.     J.  R.  Brady,  about  1830 
From  a  contemporarv  lithograph  in  the  possession  of  the  New  York  Historical  Society 


New  Bedford  and  Nantucket,  still  have  many  examples.  Others  are  listed  among 
the  works  of  Alexander  Jackson  Davis  and  Ithiel  Town,  between  1829  and  1833.' 
A  critic  unsympathetic  with  the  style  writes  of  its  progress  about  Boston  in  1836: 

"Of  late  it  has  become  much  the  fashion  to  build  country  houses  in  the  form  of  a  Grecian 
temple,  with  a  projecting  portico  in  the  front,  resting  on  very  magnificent  columns.  This 
style  prevails  at  Cambridge.  These  classic  models,  which  surround  the  college,  are  imitated 
closely  in  Cambridge-Port.  Two  or  three  specimens  of  this  style  are  to  be  seen  on  the  road 
which  forms  the  continuation  of  the  old  Concord  turnpike  through  the  Port.  One  of  them, 
in  particular,  we  have  noticed,  as  it  has  been  in  progress.  It  is  a  small  edifice,  the  whole 
length  of  which,  including  the  portico,  may  possibly  be  30  ft.,  and  the  breadth  15  ft.    The 

'  Dunlap,  "Arts  of  Design"  (1918  ed.),  vol.  3,  pp.  212-213. 

184 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

front  of  this  little  building  is  adorned  with  four  massive  columns,  with  elegantly  carved 
Ionic  capitals,  the  cost  of  which  can  scarcely  have  been  less  than  that  of  the  rest  of  the 
house.  There  seems  to  be  a  prevailing  passion  for  columns  throughout  the  country.  One 
gentleman  in  an  interior  county,  has  surrounded  his  house  with  them,  and  his  example  has 
been  followed  in  a  house  in  East  Boston."' 

In  the  backwoods  states  beyond  the  Alleghanies  and  the  Ohio  the  imitation  of 
the  temple  was  even  more  universal  than  on  the  seaboard.  When  the  wave  of  East- 
ern emigration  of  the  'thirties  swept  out  along  the  newly  opened  Erie  Canal  and 


Figure  144A.      Bremo,  Fluvanna  County,  Virginia 
From  measurements  and  sketches  by  Pleasants  Pennington 

across  the  lakes,  it  brought  with  it  this  ruling  ideal.  In  Michigan  Greek  enthusi- 
asm was  particularly  strong.  The  names  of  towns — Ypsilanti  and  Byron,  Ionia  and 
Scio — perpetuate  famous  personalities  and  places  in  the  Greek  struggle  for  freedom. 
Judge  Woodward,  in  his  first  sketch  for  the  organization  of  the  state  university,  pre- 
ferred for  it  a  Greek  title,  the  Catholepistemiad  !  When  the  institution  came  actu- 
ally into  being,  its  several  departments  were  housed  in  as  many  porticoed  temples  of 
the  Muses.  Little  after  the  log  cabins  of  the  first  settlers,  side  by  side  with  them  in 
many  instances,  rose  ambitious  dwellings  in  the  form  of  the  temple.  In  the  most 
pretentious  of  these,  Greek  proportions  and  detail  were  strictly  followed.  The  house 
of  Judge  Robert  S.  Wilson  in  Ann  Arbor  (figure  141)  has  four  columns  of  the  Ionic 
order — it  is  the  "Temple  of  the  Wingless  Victory."   Judge  Samuel  Dexter's  patriar- 

'  H.  W.  S.  Cleaveland  in  the  North  American  Revinu,  October,  1836. 

i8s 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


chal  mansion  (figure  142),  overlooking  the  town  which  bears  his  name,  is  the  amplest 
and  most  imposing  in  the  state,  with  six  tall  columns  of  a  slender  Greek  Doric. 


r 

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DD 
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DD 
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Jllllli 

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Figure  145.      Barrell  house,  Charlestown.     Charles  Bulfinch,  1792 
From  a  drawing  by  Ogden  Codman 


Figure  146.     Swan  house,  Dorchester 
From  a  measured  drawing  by  Ogden  Codman 

In  this  diffusion  of  the  temple  scheme  books  played  an  important  part.  Be- 
sides the  folio  publications  of  the  Greek  temples  and  the  handbooks  which  popu- 
larized the  forms  of  the  Greek  orders,  there  were  works  which  gave  actual  designs 

186 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

for  modern  houses  on  the  temple  plan.  Chief  ot  these  was  Minard  Lafever's  "The 
Modern  Builder's  Guide,"  published  in  New  York  in  1833.  With  forms  so  thor- 
oughly established  owners  were  able  to  proceed  with  no  other  architectural  assist- 
ance than  that  of  the  carpenters  and  builders,  and  the  scarcity  of  professional 
architects,  their  total  absence  in  outlying  regions,  was  thus  not  onerous.  The  few 
professional  architects  of  the  time — Mills  in  Carolina,  Strickland  and  Walter  in 
Philadelphia — generally  eschewed  abdicating  their  creative  liberty  to  the  temple 
scheme  in  dwelling-houses,  so  that  it  represents  a  genuinely  popular  preference  of 
lavmen  and  amateurs. 


Figure  147.     Monticello,  as  remodelled  1796  to  1809.     Thomas  Jefferson 

Various  modifications  of  the  strict  or  normal  arrangement  of  the  temple  had 
wide  currency.  One  of  the  most  common  was  the  omission  of  the  pediment,  pro- 
ducing a  scheme  analogous  to  that  of  the  Bourse  in  Paris.  Although  the  houses 
where  this  was  done  were  generally  wider  than  they  were  deep,  no  doubt  the  dis- 
like of  visible  roofs,  as  we  shall  note,  and  the  desire  to  make  it  possible  to  conceal 
them  behind  parapets,  had  an  influence.  The  river  front  of  Mount  Vernon  may 
perhaps  be  regarded  as  the  earliest  example;  Pavilion  V  of  the  University  of  Vir- 
ginia as  the  first  complete  one.  Such  Southern  houses,  with  porticos  fronting  or 
surrounding  a  cubical  mass,  are  well  known,  especially  in  Georgia,  Alabama,  and 
Mississippi.  The  town  of  Athens,  Georgia,  above  all  others — significant  by  its  very 
name — is  filled  with  fine  specimens.    They  include  the  most  superb  of  all,  the  Hill 

187 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

house,  with  its  peristyle  of  tall  Corinthian  columns  (figure  143).  Less  tamiliar  are 
the  equally  numerous  houses  of  the  sort  in  the  North,  especially  in  towns  which 
had  great  growth  in  the  second  quarter  of  the  century.  The  work  of  Elias  Carter, 
builder  and  architect,  of  Worcester,  Massachusetts,  embraces  many,  from  i8jo 
and  the  following  years. ^ 

The  number  of  columns  on  the  front  was  not  always  an  even  one,  with  an  open- 
ing on  the  axis.     Considerations  of  plan  sometimes  made  it  preferable  to  have  an 


Figure  14SI.      Dyckman  house,  New  York  City 
Courtesy  of  Alexander  McMillan  Welch 

even  number  of  openings  with  an  odd  number  of  columns.  The  arrangement  could 
have  been  familiar  to  the  more  cultivated  and  studious  architects  ot  the  time  in 
engravings  of  the  "Basilica"  at  Paestum.  A  model  house  with  five  columns  is 
shown  in  Lafever's  "Builder's  Guide."-  Such  a  house  was  the  Van  Vorst  mansion 
in  Jersey  City,  demolished  after  1890.'  Others  with  three  columns  are  not  un- 
common in  Michigan,  the  "cella"  being  only  one  room  and  a  hall  in  width. 

Another  modification  of  the  basic  temple  scheme  was  the  addition  of  wings. 

'  H.  M.  Forbes,  "Elias  Carter,  Architect,  of  Worcester,  Mass.,"  Old-Time  Nezv  England,   vol.  XI  (1920), 
pp.  59-71.        -  PI.  73.  5  W.  J.  Mills,  "Historic  Houses  of  New  Jersey"  (1902),  p.  28. 

188 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

At  Arlington  the  wings  were  perhaps  structurally  a  part  of  the  pre-existing  house. 
Elsewhere  they  were  no  less  needed  to  increase  the  accommodations  of  the  rather 
inelastic  temple  cella.  Their  extreme  development  is  in  the  magnificent  Parker 
(Bennett)  house  in  New  Bedford,  ascribed  to  18J4,'  where  the  central  mass  with 
six  Ionic  columns  on  either  front  is  connected  by  wings  with  end  masses,  likewise 
of  two  stories  and  in  the  form  of  the  prostyle  temple.  More  usually  the  wings 
were  short  and  of  a  single  story,  as  in  the  x'lnderson  house  at  Throgg's  Neck  near 
New  York,  about  i8jo,  of  which  J.  R.  Brady  was  the  architect  (figure  144).  Build- 
ings substantially  of  this  type  were  shown  by  Latever,  and  were  widely  copied  in 
western  New  York,  in  the  old  Northwest,  in  Kentucky,  even  in  Wisconsin.  Often 
there  was  only  a  single  wing,  as  an  appendage  at  right  angles  to  the  main  mass. 


Figure  149.     Diagram  of  a  low  curb  roof 
From  William  Pain's  Practical  Builder 


The  extreme  simplification  of  the  temple-house  lay  in  omission  of  the  main 
portico  itself,  usually  from  motives  of  economy.  Even  when  this  took  place,  how- 
ever, the  building  retained  unmistakable  signs  of  its  origin,  being  characteristically 
narrow  and  deep,  its  gable  to  the  street,  in  contrast  to  the  Colonial  house  which 
turned  its  broad  side,  with  level  eaves,  to  the- front. 

Outbuildings  after  the  Revolution  continued  often  to  be  combined  with  the 
house  by  wings  (figure  162):  the  Lyman  and  Gore  houses,  Homewood,  Woodlawn, 
and  Tudor  Place,  ranging  from  1793  to  after  18 10,  repeat  the  general  scheme  of 
the  older  houses  at  Annapolis.  Isolated  buildings  symmetrically  arranged  were 
also  employed,  as  in  the  Derby  mansion  and  at  Berry  Hill.  The  scheme  of  out- 
buildings below  grade,  constituting  terraces  fronted  by  colonnades,  which  Jeffer- 
son had  developed  at  Monticello,  was  used  in  certain  important  houses  elsewhere 
under  his  influence.  Thus  during  his  occupancy  of  the  White  House,  in  1804,  he 
designed  the  lateral  terraces  for  the  service  quarters.-     At  Bremo,  for  which  he 

'  D.  Ricketson,  "New  Bedford  in  the  Past,"  sketches  written  in  1878  (1903),  p.  41. 
-  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  figs.  175-177,  and  pp.  66,  175. 

189 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

made  a  design,  his  friend,  John  Hartwell  Cocke,  built  similar  terraces  terminated 
by  porticoed  pavilions  (figure  144A).  The  Hermitage  at  Savannah  had  perhaps  the 
finest  ensemble  of  plantation  buildings,  grouped  about  a  shaded  lawn  dominated  by 
the  house.  To  left  and  right  were  the  overseer's  house  and  the  slave  hospital,  then 
the  quarters  in  uniform  brick  pavilions  joined  by  walls,  in  disposition  all  very  much 
like  the  University  of  Virginia. 

The  number  of  stories  after  the  Revolution  generally  remained  two  In  the  case 
of  country  houses  and  three  in  the  case  of  town  houses,  but  there  were  tendencies 


liiiP',!  i  i  I  ■]■  t  K  8  i  »|ii  *-«  ■  1  'rr,Jp.'l  [ill   K  i  -t'j*  «..«  e  I  I  •  a  i  i  1  I'l; 


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\/^V'  ^V.^yrt/^i*»  '/     ^     TOflTlMt    t'HBflCRNT.*<j»-^^r^fl^  "*   JiarTOX 


Figure   150.      Franklin  Crescent,  Boston.      Charles  Biiltinch,   1793 
From  an  engraving  in  the  Massachusetts  Magazine,  1794 

both  to  greater  height  and  to  less.  In  Boston,  New  York,  and  Philadelphia  four 
stories  were  not  unusual  after  1800.  The  Jonathan  Harris  house  in  Boston,  build- 
ing in  1797,  even  had  five,  "a  height  unknown  in  the  town."^  On  the  other  hand, 
in  the  country  certain  houses  were  restricted  to  a  single  story,  as  Roman  houses 
were  supposed  to  have  been.  This  was  an  idea  which  goes  back  ultimately  to  Pal- 
ladio,  and  was  brought  by  Jefferson  from  the  Paris  of  1785,  when  the  Hotel  de 
Thelusson  and  the  Hotel  de  Salm  were  building.  On  his  return  he  removed  the 
upper  story  of  Monticello.-  Where  he  had  a  free  hand,  as  in  the  design  of  Edgehill, 
1798,  and  Ampthill,  18 15,  he  placed  all  the  rooms  on  one  floor.  At  Poplar  Forest, 
also,  the  house  shows  but  one  story  to  the  entrance  front.      Instances  could  be 

'  W.  Bentley,  "Diary,"  vol.  2  (1907),  p.  242.    The  drawings  preserved  by  the  Bostonian  Society  show  that 
one  of  the  five  stories  was  a  basement. 

-  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  p.  57. 


190 


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Figure  151.     Houses  nos.  1-4  Park  Street,  Boston.     Elevation.     Charles  Bulfinch 

1804  to  1805 

From  the  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of  John  Collins  Warren 


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Figure  152.     Plan  of  houses  nos.  1-4  Park  Street.     Charles  Bulfinch 

1804  to  1S05 

From  the  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of  John  Collins  Warren 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

multiplied  in  which  the  scheme  was  taken  up  by  others:  in  the  Mason  house  on 
Analostan  Island  at  Washington;  in  the  houses  of  Sir  Edwin  Cust  and  others  near 
Detroit. 

In  the  matter  of  heights  of  stories  the  most  significant  change  was  the  achiev- 
ing ot  freedom  to  have  a  variety  within  a  single  one,  conforming  to  the  uses  of  dif- 
ferent rooms.  For  the  private  rooms  great  height  was  no  longer  considered  desir- 
able— the  conception  of  intimacy,  developed  in  the  period  of  Louis  X^",  had  an 
effect.  When  Monticello  was  remodelled,  the  height  of  the  old  rooms  was  cut  in 
half  for  the  new  ones  by  the  device  of  the  mezzanine,  which  Jefferson  had  already 
proposed  in  his  rotonda  study  for  the  President's  house.  For  the  main  saloons,  on 
the  other  hand,  greater  height  and  stateliness  were  desired.  The  various  rotonda 
designs  secured  this  by  the  central  hall,  rising  even  into  the  roof  of  the  house  and 
lighted  from  the  top.  For  the  houses  having  the  projecting  saloon  various  de- 
vices were  adopted.  In  the  Barrell  house  Bulfinch  made  the  saloon  higher  than 
other  rooms  on  the  floor  by  the  height  of  its  cove  (figure  14O,  over  which  he  car- 
ried stairs  in  an  ingenious  manner.  In  the  Swan  house  (figure  146),  where  the 
dining-room  rose  through  two  stories,  the  circular  saloon  was  still  higher,  masked 
on  the  exterior  by  false  windows.  The  Jonathan  Mason  house  in  Boston  had  a 
similar  arrangement,  with  panels  opposite  its  dome  (figure  121). 

The  roof  forms  were  affected  by  the  classical  tendency  in  two  different  ways. 
The  older  Palladian  classicism  would  tolerate  no  visible  roof  but  a  spherical  one; 
the  literal  classicism  of  the  revivalists  brought  in  the  temple  with  its  broad  ex- 
panse of  roof. 

In  contemporary  Europe  visible  roofs  had  long  been  taboo  in  buildings  of  aca- 
demic pretensions.  Although  Palladio's  published  designs  for  villas  and  palaces 
all  show  pitch  roofs  without  eaves-balustrades,  his  "Basilica,"  like  the  Library  of 
St.  Mark  and  the  palaces  of  Michelangelo  on  the  Capitol,  had  only  a  balustracie 
visible  above  the  cornice;  and  this  scheme  of  roof  a  ritalienne  had  been  an  index 
of  the  spread  of  academic  influence.  It  marked  the  first  designs  of  Inigo  Jones; 
it  appeared  in  France  for  the  first  time  in  the  garden  front  of  Versailles  and  the 
colonnade  of  the  Louvre.  By  1721  it  had  filtered  down  into  the  popular  hand- 
books. In  Godfrey  Richards's  version  of  "The  First  Book  of  x^rchitecture  of 
Andrea  Palladio,"  Chapter  L  ciiscourses  "Of  Flat  Roofs,"  and  a  figure  shows  the 
construction,  which,  with  the  coverings  then  available,  involved  a  slope  of  some 
twenty  degrees,  concealed  by  a  parapet.  We  have  seen  that,  in  the  colonies,  Rose- 
well  had  a  concealed  roof  and  a  parapet  as  early  as  1730. 

An  aversion  to  visible  roofs  was  among  the  strongest  feelings  of  one  large  group 

192 


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AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

of  architects  and  laymen  in  the  early  republic.  Cooper  has  expressed  and  satirized 
this  feeling  in  "The  Pioneers"  (1822),^  in  describing  the  mansion  of  Marmaduke 
Temple,  joint  product  of  an  amateur  and  a  builder,  erected  just  before  1793  in  the 
wilderness  of  central  New  York.  We  have  seen  that  the  use  of  an  eaves-balustrade 
began  just  before  the  Revolution.  In  the  first  ambitious  houses  after  the  war  this 
feature  was  adopted  almost  universally,  and  the  roof  itself  was  now  kept  low 
enough  to  be  out  of  sight.  The  Peirce  (Nichols)  house  in  Salem  (figure  154)  and 
Washington's  portico  at  Mount  Vernon  are  early  examples. 

To  make  a  roof  really  flat,  so  that  it  might  serve  as  a  terrace  walk,  as  contem- 
plated for  the  outbuildings  of  Monticello  and  the  White  House,  and  for  the  col- 
onnades of  the  University  of  Virginia,  presented  great  technical  difficulties  which 
have  only  been  overcome  in  recent  years  by  the  aid  of  bituminous  coverings.  Jef- 
ferson devoted  much  attention  to  the  problem,  and  devised  a  scheme  of  narrow 
transverse  valleys  below  a  level  grating."  At  best  they  proved  vmsatisfactory,  and 
those  of  the  University  were  soon  covered  by  sloping  roofs. 

Not  until  the  adoption  of  the  temple  form  in  the  professors'  houses  at  the  Uni- 
versity of  Virginia  did  the  visible  roof  again  begin  to  come  into  vogue.  For  a  time 
there  was  a  struggle  for  mastery,  in  which,  as  we  have  noted,  the  temple  was  often 
robbed  of  its  pediment  and  provided  instead  with  a  parapet.  With  the  complete 
triumph  of  the  temple  ideal,  antagonism  to  revealing  the  roof  was  overcome. 

An  exterior  dome  was  a  feature  which  Jefferson  greatly  admired  in  the  Hotel 
de  Salm,^  as  in  the  Villa  Rotunda.  His  own  rotonda  studies  included  hemispheri- 
cal central  domes  like  the  one  shown  on  the  building  in  Palladio's  plates.  In  the 
remodelling  of  Monticello  (figure  147)  he  sought  to  assimilate  it  to  the  scheme  of 
the  Hotel  de  Salm  by  placing  over  the  projecting  saloon  a  saucer  dome  with  steps, 
which  he  had  already  mooted  during  the  Revolution  for  a  garden  house,^  the  form 
of  the  dome  in  that  case  being  "taken  from  Inigo  Jones's  designs,  pi.  72."  Another 
similar  dome  was  included  in  his  design  for  Barboursville,^  but  it  seems  not  to 
have  been  carried  out.  Jefferson  was  not  alone  in  proposing  or  executing  such 
domes  in  domestic  architecture.  McComb  showed  an  exterior  saucer  dome  in  his 
studies  for  the  Government  House  in  New  York,  and  Alexander  Parris  built  one 
in  1 816  over  the  saloon  of  the  David  Sears  house.  The  cupola,  essentially  a  little 
dome  on  a  tall  drum,  likewise  received  in  a  few  houses  such  as  Hampton,  Mary- 
land, and  the  Hasket  Derby  house,  a  treatment  more  in  harmony  with  its  monu- 

^  Chapter  III.  -  Kimball,  "Thomas  JefFerson,  Architect,"  figs.  176,  177,  and  p.  195. 

^  Letter  to  Comtesse  de  Tesse,  March  20,  1787.     Lipscomb,  "Writings  of  Jetferson"  (1907),  vol.  6,  p.  102. 

^  "Thomas  JefFerson,  Architect,"  fig.  62.  ^  lb.,  figs.  205-206. 

194 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

mental  origins,  but  after  1795  the  more  classical  form  of  the  saucer  dome  was 
preferred. 

In  less  pretentious  houses  older  roof  forms  persisted  long  after  the  Revolution, 
but  not  without  undergoing  significant  modifications.  Thus  the  gambrel,  which 
then  had  a  great  vogue  in  the  regions  about  New  York  City,  was  made  lower  and 
flatter.    The  Dyckman  farmhouse  on  Manhattan,  built  after  178J,  well  illustrates 


Figure  154.     Jerathmeel  Peirce  (Nichols)  house,  Salem 

this,  an  outstanding  characteristic  of  what  has  come  to  be  known  as  the  "Dutch 
Colonial"  style  (figure  148).  It  is  scarcely  Colonial  in  the  strict  sense,  and  not 
Dutch  in  origin  at  all.  Nothing  analogous  is  known  in  Holland.  On  the  other 
hand,  diagrams  of  the  low  curb  roof  of  this  type  were  common  in  English  hand- 
books after  1733.'  It  appears  in  American  reprints  after  the  war  (figure  149)^ 
when  its  popularity  is  to  be  explained  by  the  general  tendency  toward  reducing 
the  height  of  roofs. 

^  E.  g.,  F.  Price,  "British  Carpenter"  (1733),  pi.  I  k;  W.  Salmon,  "Paliadio  Londinensis"  (1734),  pi.  34; 
B.  Langley,  "City  and  Country  Builder's  .  .  .  Treasury"  (1745  ed.),  supplementary  plates;  "  Builder's  Jewel" 
(1746),  pi.  92,  etc. 

•  E.  g.,  W.  Pain,  "Practical  Builder"  (Boston,  1792),  pi.  7. 


195 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

A  development  of  republican  days  new  in  America  was  the  block  of  several 
houses  of  unified  design.  The  first  of  these,  Franklin  Crescent  in  Boston  (figure 
150),  was  designed  and  financed  by  Bulfinch,  beginning  in  1793.     It  was  likewise 


From  a  pkotoz^aph  by  Frank  Ccusins 

Figure  155.     The  Woodlands,  Philadelphia.      Entrance  front  as 
remodelled,  1788 


the  most  ambitious.  Sixteen  houses  of  three  stories  and  a  basement  were  arranged 
in  a  solid  crescent,  the  pair  at  each  end  brought  forward  to  constitute  a  pavilion, 
and  a  special  motive  placed  in  the  centre,  arching  a  cross  street.     Opposite,  facing 

196 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

the  crescent,  were  two  pairs  of  larger  semi-detached  houses  of  similar  treatment. 
When  in  1801  the  town  of  Boston,  in  which  Bulfinch  was  chairman  of  the  Select- 
men, sold  the  lots  on  Park  Street,  cut  from  the  Common,  to  private  owners,  the 
deeds  contained  the  provision  "that  all  buildings  to  be  erected  on  said  bargained 
premises  shall  be  regular  and  uniform  with  the  other  buildings  that  may  be  erected 
on  the  other  lots."     Under  this  condition  Bulfinch  designed,  among  others,  the 


Figure  156.     Morton  house,  Roxbury.      1796 
Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 

block  at  the  foot  of  the  street  containing  four  houses  (figure  151).  Within  a  tew 
years  he  had  also  designed  houses  farther  up,  including  the  Amory  (Ticknor)  house 
at  the  corner  of  Beacon  Street  (figure  165),  which  may  certainly  be  assigned  to 
him  on  grounds  of  style.  Then,  in  18 10,  he  gave  the  designs  for  "Colonnade  Row" 
along  the  south  side  of  the  Common,  nineteen  houses,  with  nine  others  in  two  far- 
ther blocks,  beyond.  All  told,  they  gave  the  Common  of  that  day  a  harmonious 
frame  unequalled  in  America,  and  not  unworthy  of  comparison  with  the  civic 
improvements  which  Bulfinch  had  admired  abroad. 

197 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


Other  cities  and  architects  soon  took  up  the  idea.  In  Philadelphia,  in  1800 
and  1 801,  William  Sansom  built  "the  first  row  of  houses  on  a  uniform  plan  .  .  . 
on  Walnut  Street  north  side,  between  Seventh  and  Eighth,  and  in  the  Street  be- 
tween Walnut  and  Chestnut,  from  Seventh  to  Eighth,  afterwards  called  Sansom 
Street."  ^  The  first  of  these  two  was  designed  by  Latrobe.^  The  design  for  the 
second,  by  Thomas  Carstairs,  is  still  preserved,  and  shows  a  block  of  eleven  pairs 
ot  houses,  without  other  general  composition  than  an  exact  repetition  (figure  153). 


Figure  157.     Crafts  house,  Roxbury.      Peter  Banner,  1805 
From  a  measured  drawing  by  Ogden  Codman 

In  New  York  McComb  designed  a  block  of  six  houses,  the  centre  pair  raised  higher 
than  the  others,  with  a  pediment.^  Robert  Mills  in  1809  designed  a  block  in  Phila- 
delphia on  Ninth  Street  between  Walnut  and  Locust.^  Most  important  of  the 
later  blocks  was  Colonnade  Row  or  Lagrange  Terrace  on  Lafayette  Place  in  New 
York.    The  exterior  treatment  of  these  will  be  discussed  later.    ' 

The  plans  of  these  houses  with  party  walls  varied  according  to  their  width. 
Those  ot  eighteen   and   twenty   feet,   including  Carstairs'   and  McComb's,  could 

'  Scharff  and  Westcott,  "History  of  Philadelphia,"  vol.  i  (1884),  p.  511. 

'  Cf.  his  letter  of  January  12,  1816,  in  the  possession  of  Ferdinand  C.  Latrobe. 

^McComb  collection,  New  York  Historical  Society,  no.  11. 

'Drawing  in  the  possession  of  Alexander  Dimitry,  shown  me  by  courtesy  of  Mrs.  Austin  Gallagher. 

198 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 


have  only  two  rooms  on  a  floor,  the  stairs  between,  and  on  the  street  floor  an 
entry  parted  off  from  one  side  of  the  front  room.  In  Bulfinch's  crescent  (figure 
150),  where  the  houses  were  twenty-seven  teet  wide,  this  entry  was  carried  through 
and  contained  front  and  also  back  stairs.  The  houses  on  Park  Street,  thirty-six 
feet  wide,  had  the  entrance  through  a  full  basement  story  to  stairs  at  the  rear,  and 


r/y//'/  //or.v/-:  ,„/.„./,■,//., 


'//,,.  / ;  v/v'/'.'/ 1  yy.  I'/'/'.' 


/'////  (///'/  /'// /  ( 


Figure  158.     President's  house,  Philadelphia.     1792  to  1797 
From  the  engraving  by  William  Birch,  1799 

thus  could  have  two  parlors  occupying  the  full  width  of  the  front  on  the  main 
floor — a  favorite  arrangement  with  Bulfinch  (figure  152). 

In  the  treatment  of  surfaces,  supports,  and  openings  the  scheme  which  ulti- 
mately prevailed  in  republican  times  was  the  puristic  classical  one  ot  plain  walls, 
windows  simply  framed,  and  orders  used  according  to  their  original  structural 
function,  with  free-standing  columns.  The  academic  elements  employed  in  Colo- 
nial times  to  enrich  and  organize  the  wall  surface  fell  into  disuse:  rustication  almost 

199 


AMERICAN    DO M ESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

at  once,  engaged  orders  by  about  1800.  Another  mode  of"  organization,  by  shallow 
surface  arches,  taken  up  meanwhile,  continued  much  later  in  vogue,  but  likewise 
ultimately  gave  way.  Interest  in  detail  was  thus  concentrated,  increasingly  from 
the  Revolution,  on  the  windows  and  doorways  themselves,  in  which  a  greatly  in- 
creased variety  of  form  and  grouping  compensated  tor  the  decrease  in  enrichment 
of  surface. 

Rustication  of  any  sort  was  highly  exceptional  after  the  Revolution.     No  im- 
portant instance  of  a  facade  grooved  or  rusticated  throughout  occurs  after  the  en- 


r 


ft  If  wteifi'ilii 


'iT'-  p?.     m-    -W    Hif^ 


Figure  159.     Accepted  elevation  for  the  President's  house.     James  Hoban,  1792 
From  tile  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of  the  Maryland  Historical  Society 

trance  front  of  Mount  \'ernon,  completed  during  the  war.  Mclntire's  early  de- 
signs include  one,  but  it  does  not  seem  to  have  been  executed.  Even  angle  quoins 
were  very  rare.  They  occur  before  1800  in  the  Joseph  Nightingale  house  at  Provi- 
dence, and  a  few  other  examples.  After  the  beginning  of  the  new  century  such  a 
use  of  them  as  in  the  Radcliffe  (King)  house  in  Charleston  is  almost  unique. 

Projecting  belts,  to  inark  one  or  more  of  the  floor  lines,  were  common  in  brick 
houses  until  18 10,  and  were  imitated  in  wood,  as  in  the  Samuel  Cook  (Oliver)  house 
in  Salem.  They  now  imiformly  turned  the  corners,  instead  of  stopping  short  of 
them,  as  had  been  equally  frequent  in  Colonial  days.  A  subdivision  of  three 
stories  by  a  single  band  above  the  ground  story  was  often  made  after  the  Revolu- 
tion, to  suggest  an  architectural  basement,  even  where  no  order  was  used  above. 

200 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

The  earliest  characteristic  instances  are  in  the  curved  houses  of  Franklin  Crescent, 
and  in  the  Octagon.  Where  two  stories  were  grouped  in  such  a  way,  panels  were 
sometimes  introduced  opposite  the  intervening  floor,  above  the  windows.  The 
Bingham  house  (figure  170),  the  Woodlands  (figure  155),  the  Octagon  (figure  129), 
and  Homewood — all  before  1800 — have  plain  panels  there,  those  ot  the  brick  houses 
white  against  the  surrounding  red.     From  about  the  beginning  of  the  century  such 


llifiiifi'!!| 

miTliriiTTlTntilinilllllLhiTl 


)<--o  ^A-  ^svir.v-Kx' 


r  y^^ytyj£*-'?^sgj'rvt^>:^agr^ 


Figure  160.     Study  for  the  Elias  Hasket  Derby  house.  Salem.     Charles  Bulfinch,  1795 
From  the  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of  the  Essex  Institute 


panels  were  occasionally  carved:  in  the  Hersey  Derby,  Parkman,  and  Jonathan 
Mason  houses  (figures  166  and  121)  designed  by  Bulfinch,  in  Woodlawn,  and  in 
the  David  Sears  house  by  Parris,  the  last  from  1816.  By  this  date,  however,  a 
surface  free  of  bands  and  panels  alike  was  almost  universally  preferred:  the  later 
houses  of  Salem  are  smooth  from  water-table  to  cornice. 

Pilasters  did  not  vanish  at  once  from  the  facades.  In  the  "colossal"  form, 
running  the  full  height  of  the  building,  as  they  had  done  in  Shirley  Place,  the 
Royall  house,  and  many  other  Colonial  houses,  they  occur  in  Mclntire's  early 
work,  at  the  corners  of  the  Jerathmeel  Peirce  (Nichols)  house  (figure  1 54)  and  of 

201 


Figure  i6i.     Harrison  Gray  Otis  house,  85  Mount  Vernon  Street,  Boston.     Charles  Bulfinch 

1800  to  1 801 

Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

the  Pickman  hovise  on  Washington  Street  as  remodelled  for  Elias  Hasket  Derby 
about  1790.  The  Langdon  house  in  Portsmouth,  built  before  1782,  likewise  has 
corner  pilasters.  The  Woodlands  (figure  155),  1788,  and  the  Morton  house  (figure 
156),  1796,  have  each  a  central  motive  of  tall  pilasters  on  the  entrance  front,  and 
the  Crafts  house  (figure  157)  follows  the  Morton  design  with  the  substitution  of 
close-coupled  columns.  The  Mason,  Prescott,  and  Everett  houses  in  Boston  had 
very  slender  pilasters  flanking  their  curved  projecting  bays.  Pilasters  above  an 
architectural  basement,  as  in  two  exceptional  instances  before  the  Revolution,  are 


Figure  162.     Lyman  house,  Waltham,  Massachusetts.     Samuel  Mclntire,  after  1793 

Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 

characteristic  of  the  last  decade  of  the  century,  especially  of  the  style  ot  Bulfinch 
and  his  followers.  The  President's  house  in  Philadelphia  (figure  158)  and  the  river 
front  of  the  White  House  in  Washington,  each  begun  in  1792,  both  have  them. 
The  engaged  columns  of  the  central  pavilion  on  its  north  front  (figure  159)  likewise 
originally  rose  above  a  high  basement.  For  Franklin  Crescent  (figure  150)  Bul- 
finch adopted  an  engaged  order,  columns  for  the  central  pavilion,  pilasters  for  the 
end  pavilions  and  the  houses  opposite;  and  he  repeated  the  motive  with  varied 
lateral  groupings  in  his  designs  for  the  Knox  house,  the  Hasket  Derby  (figure  160) 
and  Hersey  Derby  houses,  his  own  house,  and  the  Harrison  Gray  Otis  house  on 
Mount  Vernon  Street  (figure  161),  the  last  in  1800.    All  these  have  the  pilasters 

203 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


■  II 


Z.:ar,„/J- 


Figure  163.     Design  for  a  city  house 
John  McComb,  about  1799 

From  the  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of  the 
New  ^  ork  Historical  Society 

as  substructure  tor  pilasters  above  a  base- 
ment. A  basement  with  open  arcades  be- 
low an  order  was  the  motive  of  Gabriel's 
famous  palaces  of  the  Place  de  la  Con- 
corde, which  Bulfinch  had  seen,  and  which 
influenced  his  designs  for  public  buildings. 
A  similar  treatment  with  blank  arcades 
and  an  engaged  order  had  been  current  in 
England  since  Lord  Burlington's  design 
for  General  Wade's  house;  the  Adams  had 
made  it  specially  their  own  by  such  works 
as  the  house  for  Sir  Watkin  Wynn.  All 
these  had  semicircular  arches  with  single 
square-headed  windows  beneath.     Soane 


running  through  the  two  upper  stories. 
Mclntire  lost  no  time  in  adopting  the 
new  arrangement,  in  the  Lyman  house 
(figure  162)  and  in  the  remodelling  ot 
the  Assembly  House,  both  from  179J, 
but  in  both  the  order  embraces  but  a 
single  story.  Later  imitations  of  both 
schemes  exist  in  the  Pierce  house  in 
Portsmouth,  in  houses  at  Salem,  Port- 
land, and  New  Haven,  but  after  1800 
the  motive  was  no  longer  used  by  the 
leaders  in  Boston,  any  more  than  in  the 
South. 

The  first  use  of  blind  arcades  was 


ffiEin 


Figure  164.     Design  for  a  city  house 
Charles  Bulfinch,  after  1800 

From  the  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of 
the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology 


204 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

employed  segmental  arches,  with  grouped  and  muUioned  windows.  These  appear 
below  the  order  in  Bulfinch's  first  house,  the  one  for  Joseph  Barrell  (figure  184). 
His  design  for  the  Hasket  Derby  mansion  (figure  160),  in  1795,  followed  the  Pro- 
vost's House  in  Dublin — a  copy  of  General  Wade's — Mai  ton's  view  of  which,  pub- 
lished the  same  year,  formed  part  of  Bulfinch's  library.  He  likewise  used  base- 
ment arcades,  sometimes  circular,  sometimes  segmental,  under  the  pilasters  of  his 
own  house,  the  Hersey  Derby  house,  the  Otis  house  on  Mount  Vernon  Street  (fig- 
ure 161),  and  the  houses  opposite  Franklin  Crescent.  In  his  houses  at  the  foot 
of  Park  Street  (figure  151),  in  1804,  the  basement  story  has  the  segmental  arches, 


Figure  165.     Thomas  Amory  (Ticknor)  house.  Park  Street,  Boston,  1803  to  1804 

Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 

although  the  upper  stories  are  plain.  Mclntire  did  not  adopt  the  arcaded  base- 
ment, but  arches  as  well  as  pilasters  were  taken  over  in  the  later  imitations  of  Bul- 
finch's work. 

John  McComb,  of  New  York,  who  used  the  arcaded  basement  in  a  design  about 
1799  (figure  163),  seems  to  have  led  in  adopting  arcades  framing  the  windows  of 
the  main  story,  in  another  of  the  same  date.  Both'  show  blind  arches  supported 
on  pilasters  or  pilaster-like  piers.  Bulfinch  used  an  arcaded  main  story  with  plain 
piers  in  a' study  on  paper  watermarked  1800-  (figure  164),  filling  the  lunettes  also 
with  glass.  The  Amory  (Ticknor)  house  at  Park  and  Beacon  Streets  (figure  165), 
surely  to  be  attributed  to  him,  and  his  Parkman  houses  in  Bowdoin  Square  (figure 
166)  soon  followed.  All  these  have  a  tall  basement  below,  although  a  preliminary 
design  for  the  Parkman  house  has  not.  Asher  Benjamin,  in  his  "American  Build- 
er's Companion"   (1806),  which  codified  Bulfinch's  innovations,  shows  two  city 

'  McComb  collection,  New  York  Historical  Society,  nos.  104  and  109  respectively. 

-  Bulfinch  collection,  Department  of  Architecture,  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology. 

205 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

houses  with  arcades  in  the  main  story ^ — with  basement  and  without.  With  Ban- 
ner's Crafts  house  (figure  157),  1805,  the  arcades  were  taken  up  in  lower,  country 
dwellings  in  New  England  also.  Less  elaborate  examples  are  the  Phelps  house  at 
Andover  and  a  house  at  Orford,  New  Hampshire.  In  the  South,  Woodlawn  and, 
later,  Arlington  (figure  138)  have  arca"des  along  the  wings;  the  Russell  house  in 
Charleston  has  them  all  about  in  the  main  story,  one  flight  up.     Latrobe's  Burd 


Figure  166.     Parkman  houses,  Bowdoin  Square,  Boston.     Charles  Bulfinch,  after  1806 

Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 

house  in  Philadelphia  (figure  167),  built  in  1801  and  long  destroyed,  was  excep- 
tional in  having  blank  arches  in  both  ot  its  lower  stories,  its  only  fellow  being  the 
Larkin  house  in  Portsmouth  (figure  168)  from  1817 — so  similar  and  yet  so  subtly 
different. 

Where  the  facade  is  unbroken — without  pavilions,  arcades,  or  an  order — the 
general  composition  might  depend  either  on  uniform  repetition  of  a  window  mo- 
tive across  the  front,  or  on  special  types  of  windows  on  the  central  axis.  A  uniform 
range  of  five  single  windows  was  the  ordinary  Colonial  scheme;  it  never  ceased  to 

I  Plates  33,  3S. 

206 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

have  excellent  examples,  such  as,  in  Salem,  the  Nathan  Read  house,  1793,  the 
John  Gardner  house  (figure  169),  1805,  and  the  John  Forrester  house  (Salem  Club), 
1 81 8.    After  using  more  varied  schemes  in  two  earlier  houses  for  the  same  client, 


Figure  167.     Burd  house,  Philadelphia.     Benjamin  Henry  Latrobe 

1800  to  1 801 

From  an  old  photograph  at  the  Ridgway  Library 

Bulfinch  came  back  to  it  in  the  Harrison  Gray  Otis  house  on  Beacon  Street,  Bos- 
ton, in  1807.  A  modification  after  1800  was  the  use  of  three  uniform  units,  each  in 
itself  multiple,  as  in  the  Larkin  house  and  others.  Such  a  uniform  treatment  did 
not  necessarily  require  that  the  front  should  have  an  odd  number  of  bays,  espe- 

207 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

cially  if  the  entrance  was  elsewhere.  Street  fronts  two  or  four  bays  wide,  with  the 
door  on  the  side  of  the  building,  were  common  in  New  England  after  1805.  One 
is  figured  in  Benjamin's  "American  Builder's  Companion."  Bulfinch  had  already 
used  fronts  of  four  bays,  even  with  the  door  in  one  of  them;  and  this  not  only  in 
double  or  multiple  houses  where  balance  could  be  secured  by  reversing  adjacent 
fronts,  but  in  the  single  house  for  Hersey  Derby. 

While  special  window  motives  were  used  in  the  centre  of  fafades  during  Colo- 


Figure  168.     Larkin  house,  Portsmouth.     Finished  1817 

nial  times,  it  was  ordinarily  in  a  pavilion,  projecting  or  marked  by  pilasters.  After 
the  Revolution  it  became  common  to  use  them  in  an  unbroken  front,  repeating  the 
wider  and  more  important  opening  of  the  door  in  the  centre  of  the  lower  story. 
The  first  instance  was  the  Bingham  house  in  Philadelphia  (figure  170),  before  1788, 
modelled  on  Manchester  House  in  London  (figure  171)  and  having  a  Palladian 
window  in  the  second  story,  a  semicircular  window  in  the  third.  An  early  manu- 
script design  by  Bulfinch  (figure  172)  shows  a  similar  treatment  which  was  em- 
bodieci  in  the  Harrison  Gray  Otis  house  on  Cambridge  Street  in  1795,  and  in  a 
house  at  the  corner  of  Summer  and  Arch  Streets,  as  well  as  in  the  Pickman  (Shreve- 

208 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

Little)  house,  Salem,  in  1819.  An  analogous  Southern  example,  later,  is  the  Russell 
house  in  Charleston.  Examples  of  such  a  treatment  in  two-story  houses,  or  in 
the  two  lower  stories  ot"  three,  are  common  after  1800.  In  the  Orlando  Fairfax 
house  at  Alexandria,  based  on  a  plate  in  The  Builder  s  Magazine  (1774),^  the  cen- 
tral windows  of  the  two  upper  stories  are  embraced  in  a  single  tall  blind  arch  ris- 
ing through  both. 

Many  of  the  individual  elements  of  the  facades  underwent  significant  trans- 


Fro"!  a  phofap-af'h  by  Frank  Coiisins 


Figure  169.     John  Gardner  (Pingree)  house,  Salem.     Samuel  Mclntire,  1805 

formations.     Windows,  doorways,  and  cornices  all  had  characteristic  differences 
from  the  Colonial  forms,  and  in  some  respects  continued  in  rapid  evolution. 

Windows  in  the  Colonial  period  had  been  almost  universally  single  and  square- 
headed,  the  only  exceptions,  aside  from  the  early  segmental  ones,  being  the  arched 
stair-windows  and  the  Palladian  motives,  which  were  confined  to  an  axial  position. 
In  contrast  with  this  the  houses  of  the  early  republic  frequently  had  arched  win- 
dows, windows  of  semicircular,  circular,  and  even  elliptical  form,  and  triple 
groupings  of  many  sorts,  used  in  the  side  rooms  as  well  as  in  the  centre. 

'  Plate  117. 

209 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Ranges  of  arched  windows,  oblong  with  semicircular  heads,  appear  in  1788  at 
the  Woodlands,  on  the  river  front,  and  soon  after  in  the  President's  house  at 
Philadelphia  (figure  158),  in  Monticello  as  remodelled,  in  Woodlawn,  and  in  the 
Burd  house,  Philadelphia  (figure  167),  as  well  as  later  in  the  Larkin  house,  Ports- 
mouth (figure  168),  and  in  Arlington  (figure  138). 

Palladian  windows  of  the  sort  common  in  academic  and  Colonial  buildings  con- 


/;,-, 


7 ////,'  . 


A'/,.,/     /■////.. i/i/.7. /■///{ 


Figure  170.     Bingham  house,  Philadelphia.     Before  1788 
From  the  engraving  by  William  Birch,  1800 

tinued  in  use  after  the  Revolution,  although  rarely  after  1800.  The  Bingham 
house,  the  John  Brown  house  in  Providence,  the  George  Read  II  house  in  New- 
castle have  them,  in  quite  the  old  form,  with  pilasters,  entablatures  over  the  side 
bays,  and  an  archivolt  over  the  central  arch.  Later  examples,  in  the  wings  ot 
Homewood  and  in  the  Nathaniel  Silsbee  house  on  Salem  Common  (figure  173), 
built  in  1818,  have  no  enframing  order  beyond  the  jambs,  and  merely  a  band  of 
voussoirs  bent  over  all  three  divisions. 


210 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

More  commonly  in  republican  days  the  Palladian  window  was  framed  by  a 
shallow  bearing  arch.  This  motive,  a  favorite  one  with  the  Adams,  had  been  used 
once,  we  may  recall,  in  the  colonies  just  before  the  war — in  the  Chase  house  at 
Annapolis.  It  was  now  adopted  when  the  Woodlands  was  remodelled  (figure  174), 
and  successively  in  the  President's  house  at  Philadelphia  and  in  Bulfinch's  Has- 
ket  Derby  design.  All  these,  before  1800,  still  had  pilasters  and  entablature  under 
a  semicircular  arch.     Later  examples  are  modified  in   two  ways.     The  order  is 


Figure  171.     Manchester  House,  London 
From  an  old  view 


omitted  in  favor  of  plain  muUions  and  bands,  still  keeping  the  large  semicircular 
arch  above.  This  is  the  scheme  in  Latrobe's  Burd  house  (1801),  in  the  Larkin 
house  (1816),  and  the  Fairfax  house  at  Alexandria.  Or  the  bearing  arch  is  made 
elliptical,  coming  down  on  the  head  of  the  archivolt  below,  as  in  the  John  Andrew 
(Safford)  and  Pickering  Dodge  houses  in  Salem,  1819  and  1822  (figure  176),  which 
keep  the  order,  but  with  slender  engaged  columns. 

Triple  windows   all   square-headed,  though  with  the  side-lights  narrow,  as  in 
the  Palladian   scheme,   came  into  use  after   1790,   and  increasingly   after    1810. 


;ii 


AMERICAN   DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


Totally  unknown  before  the  Revolution,  they  appeared  in  1788  in  Soane's  "Plans," 
and  during  following  years  in  many  derivative  publications.  Their  first  use  in 
America,  as  we  have  seen,  was  in  the  bow  of  Bulfinch's  Barrell  house,  under  its 
segmental  arches.  In  1796  the  Morton  house,  Roxbury,  had  one,  with  a  transom; 
in  1805  the  Crafts  house  (figure  157)  had  another.  In  Latrobe's  domestic  designs, 
such  as  the  Markoe  house  in  Philadelphia  (figure  113),  1808-1811,  and  the  Van 
Ness  house  (figure  130),  begun  18 13,  they  were  the  favorite  form.  From  him  they 
passed  to  his  pupil,  Mills,  who  used  them  in  the  Wickham  and  Brockenbrough 
houses  in  Richmond.   Thornton  took  them  up  in  Tudor  Place  and  they  were  widely 

used  elsewhere,  nowhere  more  beauti- 
fully than  in  the  house  at  1 109  Walnut 
Street  in  Philadelphia  (figure  175),  a 
masterpiece  which  deserves  to  be  better 
known. 

Such  triple  windows  were  also  used 
with  a  bearing  arch — in  Soane  and  de- 
rivative English  books;  in  many  of  the 
buildings  of  Latrobe,  Mills,  and  Thorn- 
ton, just  mentioned.  Generally  they 
were  in  the  main  story,  with  square- 
headed  triple  windows  above  them. 

The  sill  in  Colonial  windows  had 
been  always  at  some  distance  from  the 
floor;  after  1788,  especially  in  Bul- 
finch's work,  it  was  frequently  dropped 
to  the  floor  level  so  that  one  might 
pass  out  to  porches  and  balconies  or  to  the  ground.  Usually  this  was  made  pos- 
sible by  ordinary  guillotine  windows  with  three  sash,  but  occasionally  casement 
sash  or  French  windows  were  used,  as  in  Solitude,  1784,  in  Bulfinch's  Morton 
house,  the  Gore  house,  and  Latrobe's  Van  Ness  house. 

The  position  and  form  of  the  window-frame  in  masonry  walls  underwent  a  sub- 
tle yet  significant  change.  In  Colonial  times  it  had  always  been  in  the  form  of  a 
classic  architrave,  occasionally  projecting  in  front  ot  the  wall  but  normally  flush, 
between  the  jambs.  Only  a  few  were  set  back,  revealing  the  masonry  jamb,  and 
these  were  still  relatively  broad,  with  the  form  of  an  architrave.  The  flush  archi- 
trave persisted  to  1800  and  later  in  houses  of  post-Colonial  character,  but  in  the 
progressive  work  it  was  replaced  by  a  narrow  and  simple  frame  set  back  from  the 

212 


Figure  172.     Design  for  a  city  house 
Charles  Bulfinch,  after  1796 

From  the  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of 
the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

face  of  the  wall.  This  type,  Ions:  used  in  England  with  windows  having  a  stone 
architrave,  was  retained  there  when  there  was  none,  as  commonly  in  designs  of 
the  Adams.  It  appeared  in  America,  along  with  the  first  Adam  detail,  in  the 
Woodlands  and  in  the  Barrell  house.  Parris,  who  introduced  it  into  Portland  in 
1805,  shows  in  his  details  for  the  Hunnewell  (Shepley)  house  an  architrave  frame 
for  the  second  story,  but  a  narrow  frame  for  the  first  (figure  177).     In  Benjamin's 


Figure  173.     Nathaniel  Silsbee  house,  Salem.     1818  to  1819 
Courtesy  of  the  Essex  Institute 

"American  Builder's  Companion,"  the  following  year,  only  the  narrow  frame  was 
shown.  Sash-bars  were  also  made  narrower,  as  in  England — a  feature  of  Adam 
slenderness. 

Any  exterior  enframement  of  windows  in  masonry  walls  by  an  architrave,  frieze, 
or  cornice  was  commonly  omitted.  Of  the  few  exceptions,  the  White  House  was 
an  adaptation  of  earlier,  academic  designs;  the  entrance  fronts  of  the  Gore  house 
(figure  178),  the  Amory  house  (figure  165),  and  the  Otis  house  on  Beacon  Street 
have  the  type  of  enframement  radically  different  from  Colonial  forms.    All  three 

213 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC   ARCHITECTURE 

are  also  exceptional  in  having  consoles  over  a  narrow  supporting  strip.  The  novelty 
in  the  case  of  the  Boston  houses,  all  after  1800,  was  that  the  strip  came  directly  at 
the  jambj  without  an  architrave — an  arrangement  not  characteristic  of  Adam's 


Fram  a  photograph  by  H.  F.  Beiii/eman 


Figure  174.     Window  at  the  Woodlands,  1788 


work,  which  Bulfinch  must  have  got  elsewhere.  The  only  enrichment  of  the  plain 
hole  which  normally  held  the  window  in  brick  walls  was  in  the  treatment  of  its 
arch  or  lintel.  Over  Colonial  windows  there  had  generally  been  a  plain  brick  arch, 
even  a  keystone  of  stone  was  exceptional.  Plain  flat  arches  were  rare  in  republi- 
can days,  although  the  Octagon,  built  1 798-1 800,  has  them  throughout.  A  white 
keystone  alone  was  not  thought  sufficient.     Most  houses  have  the  whole  arch  in 

214 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

white,  with  a  single  or  double  keystone  and  perhaps  other  voussoirs  marked  off. 
Perhaps  the  earliest  example  is  the  Reynolds  (Morris)  house  in  Philadelphia,  1786. 
The  Russell  house,  Charleston,  181 1,  has  an  additional  elaboration  in  that  the 
outermost  voussoirs,  like  the  key-block,  also  rise  above  the  top  of  the  arch.  About 
1819  came  the  substitution  of  lintels,  with  raised  centre  and  ends  ornamented  by 


Fr^JTi  a piiotn^^raflt  by  PluUf  B.  li\tUacc 

Figure  175.     Window  of  the  house  at  1109  Walnut  Street,  Philadelphia 

a  key  pattern.    They  are  found  in  Salem  in  the  Silsbee  house,  finished  in   that 
year,  and  in  the  Pickering  Dodge  house  (figure  176),  among  others. 

In  wooden  walls  an  elaborate  window  enframement  remained  in  favor  until 
wood  fell  into  disuse  for  the  better  houses,  about  1805.  A  few  windows  are  framed 
in  rusticated  quoins,  notably  those  of  the  wings  of  the  Lyman  house,  after  1793, 
but  rustication  was  on  the  way  to  abandonment.  Post-Colonial  buildings  such  as 
the  Jerathmeel  Peirce  house  in  Salem  and  the  Langdon  house  in  Portsmouth,  Adam 
buildings  like  the  Hasket  and  Hersey  Derby  houses  in  Salem,  Oak  Hill  in  Danvers, 
the  Morton  and  Crafts  houses  in  Roxbury,  all  have  a  frieze  and  cornice  over  the 
principal  windows.  The  later  of  these,  by  Bulfinch  and  his  followers,  may  be 
readily  distinguished  from  Colonial  work  by  their  delicate  proportions.  The  friezes 

215 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

are  commonly  terminated  by  small  end  blocks  and  may  be  enriched  by  fluting  or 
carving. 

The  Colonial  types  of  doorways  rapidly  vanished  trom  pretentious  houses. 
The  single  rectangular  opening,  either  with  or  without  a  rectangular  transom,  is 
scarcely  to  be  found  after  1790,  until  the  adoption  of  the  temple  scheme  brought 
it  back  in  the  University  of  Virginia.     Glass  panels  in  the  doors  likewise  disap- 


Figure  176.     Pickering  Dodge  (Shreve)  house,  Salem.     1822  to  1823 

peared.  The  pediment,  which  had  been  so  universal  a  feature  in  the  enframement 
of  later  Colonial  doorways,  scarcely  persisted  longer  except  in  local  vernacular 
work.  The  baroque  scroll  pediment  had  been  disused  on  exteriors  before  the 
Revolution. 

The  door  with  an  arched  transom  persisted  as  a  means  of  illuminating  the  hall, 
for  which  was  introduced  also  a  new  device,  the  side-light.  In  the  form  and  group- 
ing of  these  features,  largely  under  the  influence  of  the  Adams,  lay  the  variety 
and  evolution  of  the  doorway  after  1788.  In  that  year  the  first  side-lights  were 
provided  in  the  doorway  of  the  Bingham  house  in  Philadelphia  (figure  170).  Bul- 
finch  used  side-lights  in  some  form  customarily  from  1792;  McComb  adopted  them 

216 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

in  New  York  before  1800,  and  they  were  employed  in  Charleston  from  the  same 
period.  Both  in  the  fanlights  and  in  the  side-lights  leaded  designs,  as  in  Adam's 
work,  were  ordinarily  substituted  for  the  wooden  Colonial  sash-bars. 


T 


^r. 


In  "■?     i     h 


V    \ 


Figure  177.     Hunnewell  (Shepley)  house,  Portland.     Details.     Alexander  Parris,  1805 
From  tlie  original  drawing  at  the  Boston  Athenaeum 

Semicircular  fanlights — the  form  preferred  by  the  Adams  themselves — were 
the  first  to  be  used,  in  the  Bingham  house  and  the  Woodlands,  and,  with  or  with- 
out side-lights,  they  remained  the  most  common  until  about  1800  (figure  179). 
Meanwhile  in  New  England  elliptical  fanlights  had  come  into  vogue.  The  innova- 
tion in  America  seems  to  have  been  due  to  Bulfinch,  who  went  out  of  his  way  to 
use  the  elliptical  form  over  the  door  in  his  design  for  the  Hasket  Derby  house 
(figure  160).  Mclntire  had  used  it  in  1793  in  his  Nathan  Read  house,  designed 
largely  under  Bulfinch's  inspiration.     Elliptical  or  segmental  fanlights  remained 

217 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

universal  in  New  England  until  1820.  With  but  a  single  exception — that  of  the 
Morton  house — they  all  had  the  side-lights.  Elsewhere  and  later,  square-headed 
doorways  with  side-lights,  and  usually  a  transom,  made  their  appearance:  first 
perhaps  in  McComb's  house  for  Alexander  Hamilton,  The  Grange,  in  1801.  The 
Greek  revival  made  this  the  accepted  form  (figure  180), 

In  earlier  triple  doorways  there  were  either  plain  mullions  and  transoms  or  at 


Figure  17S.     Gore  liuusc,  Waltham.     Entrance  front.     Between  1799  and  1804 

Courtesy  of  Miss  N.  D.  Tupper 

most  pilasters  on  the  mullions,  as  in  Bulfinch's  design  for  the  Hasket  Derby  man- 
sion. In  the  Salem  houses  of  18 18  and  following  years,  however,  slender  engaged 
columns  and  entablatures  of  great  richness  were  adopted  (figures  176  and  191),  and 
heavier  columns  often  repeated  the  scheme  during  the  Greek  revival. 

The  enframement  of  the  door,  like  its  shape  and  filling,  underwent  modifica- 
tion. The  favorite  late  Colonial  form,  with  a  pediment  into  which  a  curved  tran- 
som broke  up,  was  unusual  after  1793,  although  in  a  few  doorways,  such  as  that 
of  Montpellier,  remodelled  in  that  year,  a  pediment  was  made  thus  to  span  one  of 
the  new  elliptical  fanlights  (figure  186).     Even  in  other  relationships  a  pediment 

218 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 


on  the  door-casing  soon  became  rare.  Instead,  there  was  generally  a  full  horizon- 
tal entablature.  A  pair  of  light  pilasters  or  engaged  columns  and  an  entablature 
framing  a  doorway  with  semicircular  transom  occurs  on  numberless  city  houses  of 


Figure  179.     Doorway  of  the  Gore  house 
Courtesy  of  Miss  N.  D.  Tupper 

the  period  of  Franklin  Crescent  and  Sansom's  buildings;  and,  under  a  portico,  on 
not  a  few  country  houses  such  as  Homewood  and  Upsala,  both  begun  in  1798.  On 
the  other  hand,  it  was  not  uncommon,  even  without  a  portico,  for  a  triple  arched 
doorway  to  have  an  archivolt  only,  as  in  the  Bingham  house,  the  George  Read  II 

219 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

house  in  Newcastle,  and  the  Gore  house,  or  merely  to  be  placed  filling  one  of  the 
bays  ot  a  shallow  arcade,  as  in  the  Hersey  Derby  house  or  the  houses  at  the  foot 
of  Park  Street,  Boston.  In  such  a  case  even  the  archivolt  was  absent.  Similarly 
the  classicists  simplified  the  treatment  ot  the  rectangular  opening:  Jefferson,  under 
the  porticos  of  his  University,  used  an  architrave  only;  Latrobe,  in  triple  square- 


Figure  I  So.      Doorway  of  the  Dexter  house,  Dexter,  Michigan.      1S40  to  1S43 


headed  doorways,  omitted  it  in  tavor  of  plain  square  jambs  (figure  181).   The  Greek 
designs  made  frequent  use  of  square  antae  (figure  180). 

A  portico  of  some  form  over  the  door  became  almost  universal  after  1790.  In 
the  North  until  1825  it  remained  ordinarily  no  more  than  an  elaboration  of  the 
doorway  itself,  its  small  columns  and  pilasters  constituting  the  door  enframement. 
Such  porticos  continued  a  Colonial  tradition:  sometimes  without  change,  as  in  the 
Jerathmeel  Peirce  and  Samuel  Cook  houses  in  Salem,  the  John  Brown  house  in 
Providence,  the  Octagon,  and  the  Hunnewell  (Shepley)  house  in  Portland;  usually 
with  greater  variety  and  richness  of  form.  The  first  and  one  of  the  most  elaborate 
of  the  new  door  porticos  is  that  of  Governor  Langdon's  house  in  Portsmouth,  be- 

220 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

fore  1782,  which  has  the  square  central  bay  widened  by  quadrants,  with,  in  all, 
four  columns  and  four  corresponding  engaged  columns  (figure  182).  In  1793  Mc- 
Intire,  inspired  by  the  great  semicircular  portico  of  the  Barrell  house,  adopted  a 
door  portico  of  this  form  in  the  Nathan  Read  house  in  Salem,  and  this  was  later 
imitated  there  in  the  houses  ot  William  Gray,  1801,  John  Gardner,  1805  (figure 
169),  Gideon  Tucker,  1 806-1 809,  and  others,  as  well  as  elsewhere  in  New  England. 
The  Gardner  and  Tucker  porches  have  supplementary  pilasters  at  either  side. 
Related  with  these  were  the  porches  with  an  overhanging  semicircular  canopy, 


1  i 


I 


£>/^*rt-*/-*-^r 


^^7^f^/,^^Z^,-/i  '--'..^ 


7  e^"  '<'  <^  »,  <■ 


Figure  181.    Commandant's  quarters,  Pittsburgh  arsenal.  Benjamin  Henry  Latrobe 
From  the  original  drawing  in  the  Library  of  Congress 


used  by  Bulfinch  in  the  Morton  house  (figure  156),  1796,  and  elaborated  in  the 
Andrew  house,  Salem,  in  18 19.  Sometimes  a  rectangular  portico  with  four  col- 
umns in  front  was  still  treated  as  itself  the  door  enframement:  with  coupled  col- 
umns and  coupled  pilasters  behind.  Such  were  the  porticos  of  Oak  Hill  (1801) 
and  the  Otis  house  on  Beacon  Street,  Boston  (1807).  The  later  Salem  houses  gen- 
erally reverted  to  a  portico  of  two  columns  only,  depending  for  richness,  as  we 
have  seen,  on  elaboration  within  the  door-arch  (figure  176). 

Other  porticos  with  columns  a  single  story  in  height  gave  more  monumental 
expression  to  doors  which  already  had  their  own  special  enframement.  Mclntire 
proposed  such  a  portico  ot  four  columns,  with  a  pediment,  in  studies  of  1780;  Soli- 
tude had  one  on  the  garden  front  soon  after;  Woodlawn,  The  Grange,  the  Wick- 
ham  and  A'an  Ness  houses  furnish  later  examples  (figure  130).    All  these  were  rec- 

221 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

tangular,  with  four  columns.  Semicircular  examples  of  the  same  general  scale  may 
also  be  found  in  the  Joseph  Manigault  and  Wilson  Glover  houses  at  Charleston. 
In  Tudor  Place,  after  1810,  and  later  in  the  Bulloch  house  at  Savannah  (figure  183), 


Fro*n  a photo^aph  by  Frank  Cousins 


Figure  182.     PorcH  of  the  Langdon  house,  Portsmouth.     Before  1782 


the  semicircle  of  the  portico  is  continued  by  a  great  niche  hollowed  about  the  door 
after  the  manner  of  Soane. 

xA  special  case  of  the  portico  of  one  story  was  what  had  come  to  be  known  as  a 
piazza:  a  covered  veranda  with  a  longitudinal  range  of  light  posts  or  columns. 
We  have  noted  the  prevalence  of  this  form  in  New  York  before  the  Revolution  and 
its  introduction  into  Boston  by  Copley.     It  remained  characteristic  of  the  vernacu- 

222 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

lar  style  about  New  York,  which  has  become  known  as  the  "Dutch  Colonial." 
Here  its  position  was  along  the  front,  perhaps  along  the  rear  also,  under  an  exten- 
sion of  the  main  roof — as  in  the  Dyckman  house  in  Manhattan  (figure  148),  soon 


Figure  183.      Portico  of  the  Bulloch  house,  Savannah 


after  the  war,  the  Board  (Zabriskie)  house  in  Hackensack,  1790,  and  countless 
others.  In  New  England  the  customary  position  was  the  one  established  by  Cop- 
ley, along  the  sides  of  the  building,  where  we  find  it  in  the  Morton  and  Crafts 
houses.  In  the  far  South  there  could  not  be  too  many  verandas,  and  we  find  them 
even  encircling  the  house  at  every  story. 

The  first  examples  of  a  portico  above  a  high  academic  basement,  interestingly 

223 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

enough,  were  the  semicircular  or  segmental  ones:  Bulfinch's  Barrell  house  (figure 
184),  1792,  Mcln tire's  executed  design  for  the  Hasket  Derby  mansion,  and  the 
south  portico  of  the  White  House,  as  proposed  by  Jef^'erson  and  Latrobe  in  1807 
and  built  in  1824.'  All  these  have  two  stories  embraced  in  the  order.  The  first 
rectangular  portico  of  the  sort  was  on  the  garden  front  of  Poplar  Forest,  1804,  the 
next  in  Pavilion  VII  of  the  University  of  Virginia  (figure  136),  erected  in  18 17 
after  a  suggestion  of  Thornton.  In  both  the  portico  is  of  but  one  story  in  height, 
with  a  width,  at  the  University,  of  six  columns.  A  few  subsequent  instances  may 
be  found,  of  one  story  and  of  two. 

Porticos  with  superposed  orders,  like  those  of  the  finest  Palladian  houses  on 


WkMtM^^f^^i^ 


"^UJUA^A&iuiiLKjS^ 


Figure  184.      Barrell  house,  Charlestown.     Elevation.     Charles  Bulfinch,  1792 
From  an  original  drawing  in  the  Librarv  of  Congress 

the  eve  of  the  Revolution,  were  uncharacteristic  of  the  early  republican  period. 
Jefferson  abandoned  the  idea  of  crowning  his  Doric  at  Monticello  with  an  Ionic. 
Verandas  in  several  stories,  as  we  have  seen,  were  common  in  the  far  South,  but 
these  had  orciinarily  small  architectural  pretensions.  Not  until  the  classic  revival 
was  waning  did  the  placing  of  one  order  above  another  again  become  sanctioned. 
An  approach  to  the  truly  colossal  portico  is  furnished  by  Jefferson's  houses: 
Monticello,  as  remodelled  (figure  147),  Edgehill,  designed  by  1798,  the  entrance 
front  of  Poplar  Forest,  and  Ampthill  in  Cumberland  County — in  which  the  portico 
ran  the  full  height  of  a  building  of  one  story.  At  Monticello,  and  later  at  Barbours- 
ville,  there  were  mezzanines,  to  be  sure,  and  at  Farmington,  where  the  new  rooms 

^W.  B.  Bryan,  "History  of  the  National  Capital,"  vol.  2  (1916),  p.  64. 


124 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

behind  the  portico  constituted  a  single  story  equal  to  two  of  the  older  part,  they 
were  twenty-seven  feet  in  height. 

Already  before  these  houses,  others  having  two  stories  throughout  were  dignified 
by  a  portico  of  their  full  height — like  that  of  the  Morris  house  in  New  York, 
which  had  been  unique  before  the  Revolution.  The  great  portico  at  the  Woodlands 
(figure  185)  seems  to  date  from  the  remodelling  of  1788.    The  Government  House 


From  .1  /"'.'.  Yl'^-j 


Figure  185.     The  Woodlands,  Philadelphia.      River  front,  as  remodelled  1788 

in  New  York,  begun  the  next  year,  followed  McComb's  studies  in  having  one  from 
the  start.  ]\L-idison,  under  the  advice  of  Jefferson,  added  one  to  Montpellier  (fig- 
ure 186)  in  1793,^  and  the  owners  of  many  other  Colonial  houses  did  likewise.  For 
the  White  House,  the  great  north  portico  projected  by  Latrobe  in  1807  was  built 
in  1829.-  A  width  of  four  columns  was  universal,  the  portico  being  merely  a  central 
pavilion,  narrower  than  the  front  of  the  house.  The  decisive  further  step  was  taken, 
as  we  have  seen  at  Mount  A'ernon  and  in  the  Pavilions  V  and  I  of  the  University 
of  Virginia,  where  the  porticos  were  made  the  full  width  of  the  front.  From  this 
point  the  history  of  the  portico  became  that  of  the  mass  ot  the  house  itself. 

'  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  p.  56. 

-  Bryan,  "History  of  the  National  Capital,"  vol.  2,  p.  238. 

2.2c 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Differences  in  the  form  and  proportions  of  the  orders  are  among  the  most  obvi- 
ous of  the  changes  from  the  Colonial  to  republican  work.  The  example  of  the 
Adams  was  here  all-powerful  at  first.  Elements  and  arrangements  familiar  in 
their  work  became  common  in  x'\merica,  beginning  before  1790.  Thus  the  Ionic 
capital  with  parallel  volutes  and  a  decorated  necking  was  first  adopted  on  the  en- 
trance front  of  the  Woodlands  (figure  155),  and  soon  in  Franklin  Crescent.  Both 
of  these  also  have  an  order  without  an  architrave,  and  a  decoration  of  friezes  with 
flutes  and  circular  paterae.    The  Corinthian  capital  with  a  single  row  of  leaves  was 


Frofft  a  photograf-ix  dy  R.  II'.  Hoisiiiger 


Figure  186.     Montpellier,  Orange  County,  Virginia.      Portico,  1793 

taken  up  in  Bulfinch's  Morton  house  (figure  156)  and  widely  used  by  Mclntire, 
among  others.  In  the  front  portico  at  Homewood  the  favorite  palm  capital  appears. 
Columns  were  attenuated  systematically  in  the  work  under  Adam  influence, 
not  sporadically  in  a  few  instances,  as  before  the  Revolution.  The  Corinthian  pilas- 
ters in  Adam's  house  for  Sir  ^Yatkin  Wynn  in  London  are  somewhat  over  eleven 
diameters  in  height,  instead  of  the  academic  ten.  The  same  proportion  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Corinthian  order  of  the  Barrell  house  and  the  Ionic  of  the  Woodlands. 
It  was  not  long  before  it  became  almost  universal  to  add  one  or  two  diameters,  at 
least,  to  the  academic  proportions,  as  Asher  Benjamin  did  tacitly  in  "The  Country 
Builder's  Assistant,"  and  expressly — "lengthening  the  shafts  two  diameters" — 
in  the  "American  Builder's  Companion"  (1806).     In  the  Gideon  Tucker  porch  in 

226 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

Salem  (1809)  McLitire  made  the  Corinthian  columns  as  slight  as  fourteen  diame- 
ters, and  in  the  Pickering  Dodge  doorway  (1822)  those  on  the  mullions  have  the 
extreme  slenderness  ot  seventeen. 

From  this  attenuation  Jefferson  held  aloof.    The  orders  in  his  Virginia  houses 


Figure  187.     Design  for  a  country  villa 

From  Lafever's  Modern  Buildi-r's  Guidf,  1833 
The  prototype  of  many  houses  with  wings  and  square  antae 

and  in  the  LIniversity  were  of  strict  Palladian  outlines  and  proportions,  often  of 
the  heavy  Tuscan.  Latrobe,  first  to  use  the  Greek  orders,  gave  the  columns  of  the 
Van  Ness  porch  (figure  130),  after  18 13,  the  full  Parthenon  ratio  of  diameter  to 
height.  In  some  of  the  most  pretentious  houses  on  the  model  of  the  Greek  temple — 
Arlington  and  Andalusia,  for  instance — the  Doric  columns  were  quite  of  antique 
solidity  of  proportion,  but  in  many  others  they  were  lightened  somewhat.     This 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

practice  was  justified  by  Asher  Benjamin  in  "The  Practical  House  Carpenter  .  .  . 
being  .  .  .  the  Grecian  Orders  of  Architecture  .  .  .  fashioned  according  to  the  Style 
and  Practice  of  the  Present  Day"  (1830).  He  writes  in  the  preface  that  the  Doric 
column  "was  generally  made,  by  the  Greeks,  about  five  diameters  in  height;  but  the 
same  order  was  generally  made,  by  the  Romans,  from  seven  and  a  half  to  eight  diam- 
eters in  height.      It  is  therefore  evident  that  the  latter  proportions  come  nearer  to 


Figure  188.     Smith  house,  Grass  Lake,  Michigan.     1840 

our  practice  than  the  former  one,  especially  when  the  orciers  are  used  in  private 
houses."  Benjamin's  Greek  Doric  was  some  six  and  three-quarter  ciiameters  high. 
Different  periods  had  their  preferences  among  the  orders.  Thus  the  protago- 
nists of  the  Aclam  style  generally  chose  the  Corinthian  or  the  Ionic,  whereas  the 
designers  of  the  first  Greek  houses  preferred  the  Doric.  The  Greek  Ionic  was  soon 
taken  up,  but  the  full  Greek  Corinthiah,  of  the  "Lysicrates"  type,  although  used 
by  Latrobe  in  the  House  of  Representatives  in  Washington  in  1817,  did  not  come 
into  general  use  for  houses  until  after  the  striking  exemplification  of  it  on  the  ex- 
terior of  Girard  College,  1833-1847.^ 

'  The  Russel  house  at  Middletown,  Connecticut,  by  Ithiel  Town  and  Alexander  Jackson  Davis,  was  de- 
scribed in  1833  as  "Corinthian  amphiprostyle  from  the  Monument  of  Lysicrates."  Dunlap,  "Arts  of  Design" 
(1918  ed.),  vol.  3,  p.  213,  and  note. 

228 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

Square  piers  or  antae  were  sometimes  substituted  for  circular  columns,  as  less 
difficult  to  make  and  less  expensive.  The  first  notable  instance  is  the  long  portico 
at  Mount  ^'ernon,  added  between  1784  and  1787.  Many  of  the  best  vernacular 
houses  in  New  Jersey,  such  as  the  A  reeland  house  at  Nordhoff",  have  a  treatment 
substantially  similar.  Lafever  in  his  "Builder's  Guide"  (1833)  applied  the  scheme 
to  the  house  in  imitation  of  the  temple  (figure  187),  and  examples  evidently  in- 


Figure  1S9.     Cornice  details.      Benjamin  Henry  Latrobe 
From  an  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of  Ferdinand  C.  Latrobe 

spired  by  his  plates  may  be  found  scattered  trom  the  Hudson  westward  through 
central  New  York  and  Michigan  (figure  18B). 

For  the  external  cornice  of  the  house,  the  academic  tendency  in  Colonial  times, 
with  its  increasing  use  of  orders  for  wall  treatment,  had  been  toward  a  full  entabla- 
ture all  around.  This  haci  been  attained,  to  be  sure,  only  in  two  examples;  far  more 
commonly  the  lower  members  of  the  entablature  existed  only  as  fragments  over 
the  pilasters.  The  puristic  functional  tendency  after  the  Revolution  left  the  walls 
of  a  great  number  of  fine  houses  without  an  order,  and  these,  almost  universally 
down  to  1820,  had  a  cornice  only.  Where  some  form  of  order  treatment  was  used, 
a  continuous  entablature  became  gradually  more  common.  Only  a  few  houses  have 
the  old  fragments  of  frieze  and  cornice,  and  these  are  mostly  before  1800.  An  ex- 
ceptional reversion  to  the  scheme  occurs  in  the  side  portico  of  the  John  Andrew 
house  in  Salem,  raised  18 19,  in  which  frieze  and  cornice  are  cut  away  between  sup- 

229 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

ports.  More  usually  the  entablature  ran  continuously  as  far  along  as  the  order 
extended  on  portico  or  pavilion,  the  cornice  only  being  carried  around  the  rest  of 
the  house.  In  an  increasing  number  of  houses,  beginning  with  those  destined  for 
the  President  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  and  Washington,  the  full  entablature 
extended  completely  around.  Jefferson  had  always  preferred  this  scheme,  and  fol- 
lowed it  whenever  he  could,  as  in  his  designs  for  Edgehill  and  Poplar  Forest.  His 
houses  for  the  University  insured  its  final  triumph:  every  building  has  a  complete 
entablatvire  even  though  there  is  no  orcier  rising  to  it.  The  Greek  houses  which 
followed  show  scarcely  an  exception. 


Figure  190.     Cornice  from  the  William  Gray  house,  Salem.      1801 
Now  in  the  museum  of  the  Essex  Institute 


Cornices  after  the  Revolution  and  before  the  adoption  of  Greek  forms,  tended 
to  grow  lighter  in  proportion  to  the  total  height  of  the  building  (figure  177).  Cor- 
nices of  extreme  thinness  may  be  seen  in  McComb's  designs  about  1800  (figures 
125  and  163),  and,  still  more,  in  Latrobe's  for  the  Van  Ness  house  (figure  130), 
1 8 13,  and  others  (figure  189).  This  lightness  was,  in  origin,  merely  a  consequence 
of  Adam  and  Soane  influence,  but  Benjamin  rationalized  it  in  "The  American 
Builder's  Companion"  (1806),  by  a  rather  specious  train  of  reasoning,  in  which  he 
maintained  that  the  height  of  cornices  could  be  decreased  considerably  without  sub- 
stantially affecting  their  appearance,  provided  the  projection  remained  the  same. 

The  profiles  of  cornices  remained  of  ordinary  academic  character  until  1800, 
and  beyond  that  date  in  the  work  of  such  designers  as  Bulfinch  and  Mclntire,  to 


230 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

say  nothing  of  Jefferson.  The  only  essentially  novel  feature  at  first  was  the  use,  in 
minor  cornices,  of  dentils  split  at  the  top,  giving  a  fret-like  effect.  This  detail,  com- 
mon in  England  at  the  time,  appears  here  as  early  as  1787  in  the  door-cornice  of 


t  J^hoU'i^y.i/^lt  by  Fr.ink  Cousins 


Figure  191.      Porch  of  the  Joseph  Peabody  house,  Salem 


the  John  Reynolds  house  in  Philadelphia.  With  the  turn  of  the  century  other  de- 
signers adopted  mociifications,  sometimes  of  a  fanciful  character.  In  the  Octagon 
Thornton  used  vertical  consoles  rising  from  the  frieze  into  the  cornice;  at  Home- 
wood  the  brackets  in  the  cornice  itself  are  of  fantastic  outline.     In  the  William 

231 


AMERICAN   DOMESTIC   ARCHITECTURE 

Gray  house,  Salem,  begun  in  1801,  there  are  very  flat  modillions,  a  row  of  trumpet- 
shaped  guttae  in  place  of  dentils,  and  a  line  of  little  spheres  strung  on  a  rod  (figure 
190).  Benjamin,  in  the  "American  Builder's  Companion,"  besides  giving  his  in- 
dividual mouldings  greater  projection  for  their  height,  employed  many  of  these 
elements.     His  profiles  were  followed  by  many  New  England  craftsmen  after  its 


Figure  192.     Oval  saloon  of  the  Barrell  house,  Charlt-stuwn.     Charles  Bulfinch,  1792 

Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 

date.  In  Salem  they  were  adopted  in  the  main  cornices  and  porch  cornices  of  the 
Forrester  house  (1818),  the  Joseph  Peabody  house  (1819-1820,  figure  191),^  and 
many  others. 

For  the  eaves-balustrade  new  forms  likewise  became  current.  The  old  scheme, 
of  relatively  narrow  posts  or  pedestals  with  long,  open  rows  of  balusters  between, 
was  retained,  to  be  sure,  in  many  cases,  but  from  1800  a  new  scheme  became  in- 
creasingly popular:  with  short  stretches  of  baluster  openings  only  over  the  win- 
dows below,  and  long,  solid  panels  between.  This  arrangement,  which  is  shown  in 
Pain's  "Practical  House  Carpenter,"  republished  in   Philadelphia  in    1797,  was 

■  For  the  date  see  R.  S.  Rantoul  in  Historical  Colh-ctions  of  the  Essex  Institute,  vol.  24  (1887),  p.  257. 

232 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

adopted  in  the  Gore  house  (figure  178),  the  Amory  (Ticknor)  house  in  Boston 
(figure  165),  1804,  the  Samuel  Cook  house,  and,  later,  the  Silsbee  house  in  Salem 
(figure  173),  1818,  and  the  Nathaniel  Russell  house  in  Charleston,  finished  before 


Front  a  photograph  bv  Fra>U-  <.  ■•:tiii:s 

Figure  193.     Vestibule  of  the  Octagon,  Washington.     William  Thornton,  1798  to  1800 

181 1 — to  mention  datable  examples.  Li  the  parapets  of  other  houses  these  open- 
ings above  the  windows  were  filled  not  with  balusters  but  with  pierced  interlacing 
circles.  Bulfinch  introduced  this  treatment  in  his  design  for  the  houses  at  the 
foot  of  Park  Street,  Boston,  in  1804;  it  was  brought  to  Portland  the  following  year 

^-33 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

by  Alexander  Parris,  who  used  it  in  the  Hunnewell  (Shepley)  house  (figure  112)  and 
others.  Benjamin  published  a  detail  for  it  in  1806.^  In  the  Swan  house,  Dorchester 
(figure  146),  the  open  panels  contained  Chinese  lattice,  which  Jefferson  continued  to 
use  in  balcony  railings  until  his  death  in  1826.  The  John  Andrew  house,  Salem 
(18 1 8),  had  fan  motives  in  the  parapet,  alternating  with  panels  of  balusters. 

The  ambitions  of  architecture  under  the  republic  included  the  adornment  of 
buildings  with  figure  sculpture,  but  this  was  scarcely  achieved  on  the  exterior  of 


Figure  194.     Stairs  of  the  Barrell  house,  Charlestown.     Charles  Bulfinch,  1792 

Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 


domestic  buildings.  For  his  splendid  house  in  Philadelphia  Robert  Morris  brought 
to  America  the  Italian  sculptor  lardella,  who  carved  reliefs  of  playful  allegorical 
cherubs,  in  rococo  manner,  for  panels  above  the  windows.  On  the  exterior  friezes 
of  some  of  the  pavilions  at  the  University  of  Virginia  Jefferson  employed  reliefs  in 
composition,  garlands  with  cherubs  or  ox-skulls. 

On  the  interior  the  leading  features  of  the  style  of  the  early  republic  were  the 
variety  of  forms  of  space,  the  attenuation  of  proportions  under  Adam  influence, 
and  the  enrichment  of  members  by  delicate  Pompeian  decoration.     After  1825, 

'  "American  Builder's  Companion,"  pi.  35. 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

with  the  victory  of  Greek  forms,  came  reaction  toward  rectangular  rooms,  heavy 
proportions,  and  relative  absence  of  ornament. 

Novel  elements  of  space,  the  general  composition  of  which  we  have  discussed, 
were  the  circular  and  elliptical  rooms  (figures  192  and  193)  and  stairs,  and  the 
interior  dome.     The  stairs,  especially,  require  further  individual  attention. 


Figure  195.     Stairs  of  the  Gore  house,  Waltham.     Between  1799  and  1804 
Courtesy  of  Miss  N.  D.  Tupper 


Stairs  in  the  Colonial  period  had  been  composed  exclusively  of  straight  runs  of 
steps.  On  the  eve  of  the  Revolution  had  appeared  a  tendency  to  curve  the  land- 
ings or  the  hand-rail.  The  new  style  involved  curving  the  runs  themselves,  more 
or  less  sharply.  Although  this  brought  winders,  or  wedge-shaped  treads,  again 
into  use,  they  did  not  now,  as  in  the  seventeenth  century,  taper  to  nothing  against 

235 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

a  newel  post,  but  surrounded  an  open  well  of  greater  or  less  size.  The  first  stairs 
of  this  sort  in  America  seem  to  have  been  those  of  the  Bingham  house  in  Phila- 
delphia, where  "  the  self-supporting  broad  stairway  of  fine  white  marble  .  .  .  gave 
a  truly  Roman  elegance  to  the  passage."  ^ 

At  the  Woodlands   (figure  109)   and  in  many  later  houses  the  staircase  has 
straight  runs  part-way  but  makes  semicircular  turns  at  the  ends.     Bulfinch,  who 


Figure  196.     Vestibule  of  the  Woodlands,  Philadelphia.      1788 
Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 

had,  in  the  Barrell  house,  ingeniously  fitted  a  double  stair,  chiefly  with  straight 
runs,  in  a  hall  with  semicircular  ends  (figures  120  and  194),  used,  in  the  Thomas 
Russell  house,  Charlestown,  a  stair  about  a  broad  central  well  of  this  form.  Mcln- 
tire  sketched  it,  and  imitated  it  in  the  Hasket  Derby  house.  Latrobe  used  it  in 
the  Markoe  house  in  Philadelphia  and  the  Van  Ness  house  (figures  iii  and  iij). 
In  these  and  other  houses  the  well  was  kept  of  regular  form,  whether  steps  sur- 
rounded it  on  all  sides  or  landings  intervened. 

^Griswold,  "The  Republican  Court"  (1856),  p.   26;. 
236 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

A  staircase  itself  semicircular,  without  any  straight  portion,  and  with  a  semi- 
circular well,  was  used  by  Bulfinch  in  the  Hersey  Derby  house  (1799),  and  elsewhere. 
The  other  side  of  the  well  might  also  be  rounded  to  make  a  full  circle,  as  in  the 
Manigault  house  in  Charleston,  the  Gore  house  (1799-1804,  figure  195),  the  Crafts 


Figure  197.     Crafts  house,  Roxbury.     Plan.     Peter  Banner,  1805 
From  a  measured  drawing  by  Ogden  Codman 

house  (1805),  the  Wickham  house  in  Richmond  (1812),  and  others.  Both  schemes 
are  taken  over  from  Bulfinch  in  1806  in  Benjamin's  "American  Builder's  Com- 
panion." 

An  elliptical  well,  wholly  or  part-way  around,  was  likewise  in  use  at  the  same 
dates,  in  Woodlawn,  in  the  Radcliffe  house  and  the  Nathaniel  Russell  house  (figure 
126)  in  Charleston,  and  in  studies  by  Bulfinch  and  Parris. 

Domed  rooms,  unknown  in  Colonial  days,  were  not  limited  to  houses  which 

237 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

had  a  visible  exterior  dome,  such  as  Monticello  and  the  David  Sears  house.  The 
great  circuLar  saloons  of  the  Swan  house  in  Roxbury  (figure  146),  and  the  Jonathan 
Mason  house  in  Boston,  as  well  as  the  vestibule  of  the  \Yoodlands  (figure  196), 
had  domes  behind  vertical  exterior  walls.  Houses  with  a  central  circular  hall 
might  have  a  tall  dome  beneath  the  roof,  lighted  by  a  cupola.  This  is  the  case  with 
Brentwood  in  the  city  of  Washington,  where  the  formal  composition  of  space  is 


Figure  198.     Interior  of  the  John  C.  Stevens  house,  College  Place  and  Murray  Street 
New  York.     Alexander  Jackson  Davis 

From  the  original  drawing  in  the  possession  of  the  New  York  Historical  Society 


elaborated  by  square  niches  in  the  diagonal  axes  of  the  rotunda.  The  niche  with  a 
semi-dome — large  enough,  unlike  late  Colonial  niches,  to  tell  in  the  spatial  effect 
— was  not  uncommon,  especially  in  the  work  of  Latrobe  and  his  followers.  It  oc- 
curs, for  example,  in  the  Markoe  house,  Philadelphia  (1808),  the  Wickham  house, 
Richmond  (181 2),  and  Latrobe's  plans  for  houses  at  the  Pittsburgh  arsenal. 

Other  vault  forms,  in  the  plaster  ceilings  of  hall  and  vestibule,  united  perhaps 
with  a  variety  of  form  in  the  walls  below,  prevented  a  monotony  of  merely  cubical 
rooms.  At  Homewooci,  just  in  1800,  there  was  a  groin  vault  in  three  bays,  running 
transversely  in  the  lateral  passage  where  it  intersects  the  hall.     In  Parris's  design 


23^ 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

for  the  Hunnewell  house  in  Portland  (figure  112),  1805,  such  a  vault  runs  back  in 
the  hall  itself.  A  more  ambitious  but  less  consistent  scheme  of  groined  arches  sup- 
ported by  pilasters  and  columns  surrounds  the  large  rectangular  hall  of  the  Hollis- 
ter  house  at  Greenfield,  where  Benjamin  published  his  first  book.  The  Crafts  and 
Sears  houses  (figures  197  and  127)  in  Boston  have  each  a  groin-vaulted  bay  in  the 
vestibule,  flanked  by  niches.     Most  ambitious  of  all  in  form  is  the  entrance  hall  of 


/•'i-i'ni  a  ph.'toj^i-a/'h.  co/ri'ii^ht  igi3.  by  Frufii-  Cousins 

Figure  199.     East  parlor  of  the  Jerathmeel  Peirce  (Nichols)  house,  Salem 

Samuel  Mclntire 

Latrobe's  house  for  Stephen  Decatur  in  Washington,  with  its  segmental  vaults:  a 
square  bay  with  pendentives  in  the  centre,  a  short  barrel  vault  in  front,  and  a  great 
niche,  itself  with  minor  niches,  as  the  culminating  feature. 

The  new  interest  in  composition  of  space,  coupled  with  structural  purism, 
tended  to  reduce  the  elaboration  of  wall  surface,  and  to  concentrate  attention  on 
individual  members,  chiefly  of  a  functional  character:  doorways,  windows,  chim- 
neypieces,  cornices,  the  centrepieces  of  ceilings,  the  strings  and  hand-rails  of  stairs. 

Panelling,  which  had  been  getting  less  common  before  the  Revolution,  soon 
disappeared  entirely  in  favor  of  plain  surfaces  of  plaster.  In  a  few  houses  strip 
panels  were  applied  to  the  plastered  walls  in  the  Adam  manner.     IVIcIntire  sketched 

239 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

such  a  treatment  in  the  Barrell  house  and  employed  it  in  the  oval  room  of  the 
Derby  mansion.  The  profiles  ot  the  mouldings  he  deriv^ed  from  Pain's  "Practical 
House  Carpenter,"  recently  issued.  The  pedestal-like  dado,  generally  plain,  of  late 
Colonial  times,  persisted  very  generally  down  to  1820.  Often,  however,  the  plas- 
ter was  carried  down  to  the  baseboard,  leaving  the  dado  cap  or  "surbase"  as  an 
isolated  band,  decorated  in  many  cases  with  reedings,  dentils,  interlaces,  floral  or 


4Wf 


Figure  200.     Ballroom,  Lym;m  house,  Waltliam 

wave  motives.  No  one  of  these  has  any  general  priority  in  time,  and  many  of 
them  appear  simultaneously  in  a  single  building,  as  in  the  Mort(jn  house,  1796. 
Even  the  surbase  was  omitted  with  increasing  fret^uency  as  the  Greek  influence 
gathered  strength.  Wall-paper  continued  much  in  use  and  silk  was  occasionally 
employed;  but,  as  on  the  eve  of  the  Revolution,  the  most  advanced  practice 
eschewed  them.  Among  houses  building  in  1800,  Monticello,  the  Octagon,  Home- 
wood,  and  others  have  none.  In  the  elegant  interior  of  about  1830 — as  we  see  it 
in  a  water-color  by  Alexander  Jackson  Davis  for  the  Stevens  house  at  College 
Place  and  Murray  Street,  New  York  (figure  198),'  perfectly  plain  wall  surfaces 

1  In  the  gallery  of  the  New  \  ork  Historical  Society,  and  reproduced  by  kind  permission  of  the  Society. 


240 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

provide  a  toil  tor  the  stately  architectural  members  and  tor  rich  ttirniture,  pic- 
tures, mirrors,  and  carpet. 

Architectonic  treatment  of  the  walls  by  an  order,  which  had  been  already  fall- 
ing into  disuse  under  rococo  influence,  was  now  generally  abjureci,  and  persisted 
only  in  exceptional  cases.  Some  ot  these  were  essentially  survivals  of  Colonial 
pilaster  treatment,  translated  into  Adam  proportions  and  detail.    Thus,  in  finish- 


Figure  20I.     Interior  from  the  Barrell  house,  Charlestown.     Charles  Bulfinch,  1792 

Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 

ing  the  Adam  parlor  of  the  Jerathmeel  Peirce  house  (figure  199),  some  score  ot 
years  later  than  the  building,  Mclntire  used  pilasters  to  support  an  entablature 
spanning  the  recesses  at  either  side  of  the  chimney-breast.  The  most  characteristic 
examples,  however,  now  made  use  of  the  column,  with  its  greater  functional  and 
monumental  quality.  The  Williams  house  at  1234  Washington  Street,  Boston,  had 
Adam  Corinthian  columns  in  the  same  relations  as  the  pilasters  of  the  Peirce 
house:  in  the  recesses  beside  the  fireplace,  resting  on  a  dado.  The  ballroom  of  the 
Lyman  house,  an  addition,  has  similar  columns  rising  trom  the  floor,  very  tall  and 
slender,  with  a  screen  of  columns  also  at  the  other  end  of  the  room  (figure  200). 

241 


AMERICAN    DO  M  ESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

The  vestibule  ot  the  Woodlands  (1788)  is  unique  in  having  a  unified  columnar 
treatment  throughout  (figure  196).  Its  circular  cornice  is  supported  by  eight  col- 
umns equally  spaced.  In  the  interiors  of  Greek  inspiration,  columns  were  used  only 
m  open  screens,  sometimes  double,  as  the  one  in  the  Stevens  house  in  New  York. 


Fr.'"i  1/  photograph,  copyright,  tgiJ,  hy  Wi/hmn  A".  Se»ipie 

Figure  202.     The  saloon,  Monticello.     Thomas  Jefferson,  1771  to  1809 


The  form  of  interior  cornices  varied  much  at  any  given  time  with  the  means 
of  the  owner  and  the  relative  importance  of  the  room,  but  an  evolution  may  be 
traced  in  several  respects.  Cornices  of  academic  proportions  and  profile  persisted 
for  some  time  in  fine  houses,  anci  may  even  be  found  in  rooms  of  the  Barrel!  house 

242 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

in  1792,  where  Adam  forms  were  first  introduced  into  New  England  (figure  201). 
Meanwhile  lighter  cornices,  often  with  a  frieze — both  usually  with  enrichment  in 
composition,  if  they  were  not  entirely  of  stucco — came  in  favor.  Such  cornices 
and  friezes  had  appeared  just  before  the  Revolution  at  Kenmore  and  Mount  Ver- 
non; they  now  were  adopteci  at  Solitude  (figure  204),  1784,  in  the  Otis  house  of 
1795  and  other  works  of  Bulfinch  such  as  the  Hersey  Derby  house,  in  the  Octagon 
(figures  19J  and  207),  the  Lyman  house  (figure  200),  and  others  down  to  1810. 


vtit  ,1  ^lu\'ri:y.!^!:  fy  R.  11'.  Hoisiilgif 

Figure  203.     Cornice  in  the  North  Bow,  Monticello.     Thomas  Jefferson,  about  1805 


The  examples  enumerated  have  simple  classic  profiles,  often  with  dentils,  plain  or 
fanciful,  and  with  relatively  slight  projection.  About  1800  shallow,  flat  blocks, 
mutules  or  modillions  began  to  be  introduced,  the  projection  of  the  cornice  tended 
to  be  increased,  and  the  under  side  or  "planceer"  ornamented.  An  early  cornice 
of  this  sort  is  in  the  hall  at  Upsala,  1798,  others  are  at  Homewood,  in  the  John 
Gardner  house  at  Salem,  1805,  and  the  RadcliiTe  house  in  Charleston,  finished 
1806.  Benjamin,  in  his  "Country  Builder's  Assistant"  (1797),  had  shown  no  room 
cornices  with  modillions,  but  in  "The  American  Builder's  Companion,"  published 
1806,  in  which  he  had   the  collaboration   of  the  stucco  worker,  Daniel  Raynerd, 


Figure  204.     Ceiling  at  Solitude.      1784  to  1785 


Figure  205.     Ceiling  of  the  stair  hall  in  the  Nathaniel  Russell 
house,  Charleston.     Finished  before  iSii 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

mutules  free|uently  occur  in  the  plates  engraved  by  both  men,  and  it  is  stated  that 
one  of  the  embellishments  "ought  always  to  be  in  the  plancere."  Scrolls  rising 
below  the  overhang,  which  were  shown  by  Benjamin  as  early  as  1797,  were  also 
used  in  the  Gardner  house.  A  detail  of  a  stucco  cornice  having  as  its  main  mem- 
ber a  hollow  adorned  with  leaves,  much  like  one  given  by  Raynerd  in  1806,  is  pre- 
served among  the  Tucker  papers  at  the  Essex  Institute,  the  Tucker  house  having 


Froin  a  photograph  by  Fra}ik  Cousins 

Figure  206.     John  Andrew  (SafFord)  house,  Salem.      1818  to  1819 


been  built  in  1809.     In  the  Andrew  house  in  Salem,  1818-1819,  finally,  the  stucco 
cornice  is  of  plain  mouldings  of  rounded  section  (figure  206). 

A  cove  cornice,  frequent  enough  in  Colonial  days,  continued  in  use  for  a  brief 
time  only.  The  banquet  room  at  Mount  A'ernon  (about  1778)  has  one,  festooned 
with  Adam  husks.  The  oval  saloon  of  the  Barrell  house  (figure  192)  likewise  had 
a  cove,  which  was  imitated  in  the  similar  room  of  the  Hasket  Derby  house  (1795). 
Latest,  perhaps,  was  the  ballroom  of  the  Lyman  house. 

245 


•      AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

A  full  entablature  as  a  room  cornice,  which  had  been  rather  common  before  the 
Revolution,  was  used,  for  a  long  time  after  it,  only  in  Jefferson's  work  (figures  202 
and  203).     His  entablatures  were  proportioned  to  the  rooms  exactly  as  if  sup- 


from  ti  piuUo^riifn  iiy  l-i\ULk  Clui^hiis 

Figure  207.     Mantel  and  cornice  in  the  drawing-room  at  the  Octagon 
William  Thornton,  1798  to  1800 


ported  by  an  order,  so  that  the  Tuscan  ones  in  minor  rooms  at  the  University  are 
of  enormous  size.  With  the  supremacy  of  Greek  forms  a  full  entablature  once  more 
became  the  general  rule. 

246 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

Adam  sunbursts  were  adopted  in  the  ceilings  at  Mount  Vernon,  as  we  have 
seen,  just  as  the  Revolution  broke  out.  A  richer  ceiling  of  the  same  sort  distin- 
guished Solitude  (figure  204),  built  immediately  after  the  war  for  John  Penn,  fresh 
from  England.  "The  Practical  House  Carpenter,"  which  seems  to  have  been  the 
work  of  \Yilliam  Pain  mentioned  in  Mclntire's  inventory,^  showed  ceilings  of  this 
character,  and  Mclntire  drew  on  its  plates  92  and  93  for  his  ceiling  in  the  oval 


Fro>n  a  photograph  by  Frank  Co, 

Figure  208.     Mantel  in  the  dining-room  at  the  Octagon.     Wilham   f  hornton,  1798  to  1800 


room  of  the  Hasket  Derby  house.  Until  1812  or  later  such  ceilings  remained  in 
vogue  for  rooms  of  special  importance,  being  used  in  the  Hersey  Derby,  Nathaniel 
Russell  (figure  205),  and  Wickham  houses,  among  others.  Raynerd  drew  a  plate 
of  them  for  the  "American  Builder's  Companion,"  in  1806.  As  time  went  on  orna- 
ment tended  to  be  limited  to  a  central  rosette.  This  was  the  case  in  the  Radcliffe 
house  in  Charleston,  from  1806.  The  Andrew  house  in  Salem  has  one,  with  four 
quarter-rosettes  in  the  corners  of  the  ceiling  (figure  206).      In  spite  of  the  forms  of 

'  Essex  Probate  Records,  vol.  380,  p.  367. 

^47 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

the  leaves  here,  their  increasing  weight  and  the  smooth  border-mouldings  portend 
the  coming  of  Victorianism. 

The  chief  feature  of  the  interiors,  even  more  than  in  Colonial  days,  was  the 
chimneypiece.  Until  after  1790  it  generally  conformed  to  late  Colonial  types,  hav- 
ing a  heavy  architrave  with  ears,  and  perhaps  a  similar  architrave  as  an  overman- 
tel, which  might  be  flanked  by  pilasters  and  crowned  by  a  broken  pediment.  The 
characteristic  republican  type  was  quite  different,  being  similar  to  the  marble  man- 
tels imported  on  the  eve  of  the  Revolution.  Like  them,  it  placed  less  emphasis  on 
a  surrounding  architrave  than  on  flanking  supports,  above  which,  in  a  frieze,  were 
projecting  end  blocks.  The  more  elaborate  examples  had  also  a  centre  block  or 
panel,  and  were  richly  ornamented  with  Adam  motives  in  composition. 

Marble  mantels  continued  to  be  imported,  as  well  as  marble  facings.  Solitude, 
just  after  the  Revolution,  has  a  mantelpiece  of  gray  marble,  flanked  by  half-pilas- 
ters like  the  one  in  the  parlor  of  the  Chase  house,  just  before  the  war.  Its  frieze 
has  vertical  flutings  with  special  centre  and  end  motives.  A  splendid  marble  man- 
telpiece, the  gift  of  Samuel  Vaughan  to  Washington,  reached  Mount  ^'ernon  in 
February,  1785.'  Precisely  during  the  period  of  Adam  supremacy,  however,  mar- 
ble mantels  were  less  used  in  America  than  either  in  the  late  Colonial  period  or 
after  1820.  The  very  rich  ornament  in  fashion  tended  to  make  them  prohibitively 
expensive,  and  even  in  England,  although  the  Adams  used  many  mantels  of  mar- 
ble, in  their  later  work  they  generally  gave  preference  to  cast  cement.  Whole  man- 
tels of  this,  very  closely  imitated  from  authentic  designs  of  the  brothers,  were  im- 
ported by  Thornton  for  the  Octagon  (figures  207  and  208).  They  bear  the  date 
1799  and  the  name  of  Coade,  whose  "manufactory  in  the  Borough  of  London" 
Thornton  recommended  to  Jefferson  in  18 17.-  More  usually  ornamental  motives 
of  composition  were  applied  to  wooden  mantels  in  general  accordance  with  the  de- 
signs shown  in  books. 

Models  for  the  design  of  these  mantels  were  furnished  especially  in  Pain's  "Brit- 
ish Palladio"  (1788  ff.),'  and  "Practical  House  Carpenter"  (1792  ff.),^  the  latter 
soon  republished  in  America.  Of  native  works,  Benjamin's  first  book,  "The  Coun- 
try Builder's  Assistant"  (1797)  contained  several  of  a  similar  character. 

The  earliest  existing  mantel  of  the  sort  made  in  this  country  is  one  from  Mcln- 
tire's  Nathan  Read  house  in  Salem,  1793,  now  removed  to  The  Lindens,  Dan  vers 
(figure  209).  As  the  Read  house  was  so  largely  inspired  by  Bulfinch's  Barrell  house, 
built  the  previous  year,  we  may  doubtless  assume  that  it  contained  similar  mantels, 

'  Wilstach,  "Mount  Vernon,"  p.  174.  ^  Glenn  Brown,  "The  Octagon"  (1916),  p.  14. 

3  £.  g.,  pis.  16  and  17.  ^  E.  g.,  pis.  80-82. 

248 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 


although  these  were  later  replaced  by  uninteresting  ones  ot  marble.  Others,  which 
may  show  us  what  Bultinch's  early  mantels  were  like,  are  still  preserved  in  the  Otis 
house  on  Cambridge  Street  (figure  210),  1795,  and  in  the  Gore  house  (figure  211). 


Fro>'!  a  photoi^raph  by  Frank  Cousins 

Figure  209.     Mantel  from  the  Nathan  Read  house,  Salem,  now 
Hooper  house,  Danvers.     Samuel  Mclntire,  1793 


in  the 


Several  mantels  likewise  remain  in  the  Hersey  Derby  house,  an  authenticated  work 
by  Bulfinch  from  after  1799.  Many  examples  of  generally  similar  character  and 
date  to  these  from  New  England  may  be  found  in  other  regions. 


249 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

No  special  priority  seems  to  have  subsisted  in  the  employment,  as  mantel  sup- 
ports, of  engaged  columns,  pilasters,  half-pilasters,  or  panels  of  a  pilaster-like  char- 
acter. All  alike  are  shown  in  handbooks  of  the  'nineties.  Free-standing  columns 
or  pairs  of  slender  columns,  however,  did  not  come  into  use  in  American  Adam 
mantels  until  1800.  The  first  dated  instances  come,  respectively,  from  Homewood 
and  from  the  William  Gray  house  (Essex  House)  at  Salem.     Both  these  show  in 


I  I  I  I  I  11  I  ijp\  1 1  I  I  1 1 1  1 1 11 1  1 1 1  I  1 1 1 1 1  M  I  I  It  I  I  I  I  I  (  1  I  I  I  I  1  I  I  I  I  I  I  I  I  U  I  I  I  \\fM  I  I  )  M  I  M  I  I  1 1  I  M  >  )  t  I  1  I  I  I  I     I  I  1)  I  I  I  I 


\  ;'.'o) 


Figure  210.     Mantel  from  the  Harrison  Gray  Otis  house,  Cambridge  Street,  Boston.      1795 
Courtesy  of  the  Society  for  the  Presetvation  of  New  England  Antiquities 


different  ways  the  beginnings  of  a  tendency  to  modify  the  forms  of  the  orders  in  a 
fanciful  and  capricious  manner.  The  mantel  in  the  southwest  room  at  Homewood 
has  a  colonnette  rising  directly  to  the  vznder  side  of  its  cornice.  The  Gray  mantel 
has  colonnettes  of  quatrefoil  plan — of  "Gothic  architecture  improved  by  rules  and 
proportions" — although  arrangement,  mouldings,  and  ornament  remain  the  same 
as  in  thoroughly  classic  examples.  Raynerd  in  the  "American  Builder's  Com- 
panion" (1806)  shows  a  colonnette  of  this  sort,  as  well  as  slender  coupled  colon- 
nettes. A  tall  and  very  flat  console  reaching  to  the  floor,  which  had  been  used  at 
Woodlawn  about  1800,  also  appears  there. 

250 


Figure  211.     Mantels  from  the  Gore  house,  Waltham.     Between  1799  and  1S04 

Courtesy  of  Miss  N.  D.  Tupper 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

The  mantel  cornices  underwent  a  transformation  in  profiles  similar  to  that  of 
room  cornices.  The  first  fanciful  examples  are  at  Homewood,  where  there  is  a  wide- 
spreading  shelf  supported  by  modillions.  The  wide  shelf  may  be  found  also  at 
Woodlawn  and  in  many  later  mantels  in  Salem.  These  last  seem  to  be  under  the 
influence  of  the  mantel  and  cornice  designs  of  the  "American  Builder's  Com- 
panion" (1806).  Thus  the  mantels  of  the  Kimball  house  and  the  Woman's  Bureau 
have  guttae  in  place  of  dentils  like  its  plates  12  and  13,  and  the  Kimball  mantel 
has  also  a  line  of  spheres  let  into  the  edge  of  the  mantel-shelf,  as  in  plate  28. 

An  overmantel  was  retained  in  a  few  instances  even  after  the  adoption  of  Adam 
forms.  Pain's  "Practical  Builder,"  of  which  an  edition  was  published  in  Boston 
in  1792,  shows  one  (plate  50);  his  later  works,  the  "British  Palladio"  and  "Practi- 
cal House  Carpenter"  have  none.  The  Adam  parlor  at  the  Jerathmeel  Peirce 
house  (figure  199)  anci  two  rooms  at  Oak  Hill  (i  800-1 801)  have  overmantels  which 
represent  essentially  the  Colonial  scheme  with  Adam  detail.  The  Williams  house 
at  1234  Washington  Street,  Boston,  had  a  feature  over  the  mantel  more  in  conso- 
nance with  the  work  of  the  Adams  themselves:  a  medallion  with  a  figure  in  relief. 
In  the  fanciful  work  under  the  influence  of  Benjamin  and  others,  which  succeeded 
the  Adam  work  proper,  the  scheme  of  an  overmantel  flanked  by  an  order  still  per- 
sisted in  outlying  regions.  This  seems  to  have  been  specially  the  case  in  Ports- 
mouth and  its  sphere  of  influence.  The  Haven  house  in  Portsmouth  has  several 
chimneypieces  with  pairs  of  slender  colonnettes  both  below  and  above  the  mantel, 
and  a  suggestion  of  interlaces  and  festoons  made  with  the  drill  (figure  212).  A  very 
beautiful  mantel  and  overmantel  of  similar  style,  from  the  "Eagle  house,"  Haver- 
hill, is  owned  by  the  Metropolitan  Museum  (figure  213). 

The  composition  of  doorways  was  generally  similar  to  that  of  mantelpieces,  ex- 
cept that  a  regular  architrave  was  more  often  retained.  Ears  were  soon  aban- 
doned. W^hether  with  an  architrave,  or  with  pilasters,  half-pilasters,  or  panels,  it 
was  almost  universal  in  the  finer  doorways  after  1790  to  have  a  frieze  with  end 
blocks.  The  first  example,  and  a  very  rich  and  characteristic  one,  is  at  the  Wood- 
lands (figure  214).  Modillions,  with  a  wide  projection  to  the  cornice,  first  appear 
at  Homewood;  they  were  characteristic  of  the  houses  in  Salem  about  1818.  In  the 
Forrester  house  and  the  Andrew  house  (figure  206)  there  at  this  time,  and  in  the 
Decatur  house,  Washington,  just  before,  we  find  the  first  examples  of  doors  framed, 
not  by  a  mitred  architrave,  but  by  moulded  bands  with  corner  blocks,  which  re- 
mained characteristic  through  the  middle  of  the  century. 

Stairways  in  their  general,  spatial  form  we  have  already  discussed.  It  remains 
only  to  treat  of  the  details  of  hand-rails  and  strings.    The  open  string,  with  the 

252 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

ends  of  the  treads  showing,  remained  universal.  Many  of  the  curved  flights,  even 
at  the  very  foot,  had  no  wall  below  the  string:  they  appeared  self-supporting.  Be- 
sides the  customary  forms  of  scroll  ends,  it  became  common  to  find  applied  scrolls 
formed  merely  of  a  thin  sawn  strip,  often  of  fantastic  outline.   The  earliest  of  these 


Figure  212.     Mantel  in  the  Haven  house,  Portsmouth 
From  Corner  and  Sodcrlioltz:  Colonial  Architecture  in  New  England 

are  in  the  Reynolds  house  in  Philadelphia  and  in  the  Barrell  house  (figure  194). 
At  the  Woodlands  and  in  the  Gore  house  (figure  195)  the  strings  for  the  first  time 
are  wholly  devoid  of  enrichment. 

Twisted  balusters  quickly  ciisappeared  after  the  Revolution,  and  even  the  sim- 
pler turned  profiles  tended  to  give  way  to  plain  sticks,  square  or  round,  as  in  the 
Barrell  house,  the  Octagon,  Woodlawn,  the  Gore  house,  and  many  others.  Balus- 
ters sawn  in  interlacing  patterns  were  occasionally  used  by  Mclntire,  in  the  John 

253 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


Gardner  house  (1805)  and  in  the  Jerathmeel  Peirce  house  as  completed.     In  the 
Peirce  house  interlacing  motives  alternate  with  groups  ot  plain  square  balusters. 
The  decorative  treatment  of  the  characteristic  style  ot  the  republic  was  initially 


Figure-  213.     Mantel  from  the  Eagle  house,  Haverhill 
In  the  Metropolitan  Museum 

derived  from  the  artistic  fashion  of  the  time  in  England  and  France — the  style  of 
the  brothers  Adam  and  of  Louis  XVI.  Instead  of  the  luxuriant  curves  of  shell- 
work  which  had  preceded,  it  employed  classical  motives,  such  as  mythological  fig- 
ures, griffins,  urns,  medallions,  and  slender  garlands  of  husks  or  of  drapery. 

254 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

This  elaborate  and  tenuous  plastic  decoration  made  demands  beyond  the  skill 
of  most  of  the  native  craftsmen.  The  books  which  popularized  the  new  style  in 
America,  such  as  the  later  works  ot  William  Pain,  gave  models  for  the  general 


Figure  214.     Interior  door  at  the  Woodlaiu 
Courtesy  of  Ogden  Codman 


1788 


treatment  of  mantels  and  other  features,  but  not  such  full-size  details  as  would 
enable  men  unfamiliar  with  the  style  to  carve  the  ornament  successfully.  The 
cement  stucco  and  plaster  compositions  developed  by  the  Adams  and  others  in 
London,  however,  were  reproduced  in  moulds  tor  application  as  needed,  and  the 

^55 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

wide  diffusion  ot  many  elaborate  motives,  absolutely  identical,  shows  that  these 
ornaments  were  shipped  to  all  parts  of  America.  As  one  example  among  many,  we 
may  cite  the  small  baskets  of  fruit  and  flowers,  of  which  identical  examples  may 
be  found  in  Germantown  and  in  the  Barton  Myers  house  in  Norfolk.  Such  orna- 
ments were  occasionally  mentioned  in  inventories  or  offered  for  sale.  Thus  among 
the  contents  of  the  great  house  of  Elias  Hasket  Derby,  who  ciied  in  1799,  is  listed: 
"One  box  Composition  Ornaments  broken  sets  $20";'  and,  among  the  effects  of 
Samuel  Mclntire,  its  designer  and  carver:  "A  lot  composition  ornaments  and  Draws 
I35.'"-    With  other  property  of  Mclntire  these  ornaments  were  sold  April  30,  1811. 


/■rc»t  a  pitoiogTiiph  by  K.  St',  Holsingir 

Figure  215.     Wedgwood  plaque  from  the  dining-room  mantel  at  Monticello 


Figure  subjects  from  classical  mythology  were  frequently  used  in  mantels,  on 
the  central  panels  and  end  blocks.  Among  the  most  popular  were  the  muses. 
Flaxman  had  modelled  these  for  Wedgwood  after  1775  from  the  "Apotheosis  of 
Homer"  relief  in  the  British  Museum  and  from  the  famous  sarcophagus  in  the 
Louvre.  A  Wedgwood  plaque  (figure  215)  with  four  figures  from  the  latter:  Urania, 
Terpsichore,  Euterpe,  and  Polyhymnia,  is  the  central  ornament  of  the  frieze  in  the 
dining-room  mantel  at  Monticello,  which  has  also  oval  medallions  of  muses  at  the 
ends.  Figures  of  single  muses  cast  in  composition  were  favorite  ornaments  for 
end  blocks.  For  instance,  a  muse  with  a  lyre  (Terpsichore  ?)  is  found  in  identical 
form  in  mantels  of  Mclntire's  Jerathmeel  Peirce'  and  Felt  houses  in  Salem,  of  A'er- 


^  Essex  Probate  Records,  vol.  372,  p.  333. 

'Cousins  and  Riley,  "The  Woodcaner  of  Salem,"  pi.  106. 

256 


-  lb.,  vol.  380,  p.  367. 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

non  and  the  Lilacs  in  Pliiladelphia,^  and  of  a  iiouse  at  74  Prospect  Street,  New- 
port.- Polyhymnia  appears  in  the  William  Gray  mantel  from  Salem  and  in  one  in 
the  Diller  house,  Lancaster,  Pennsylvania.  Many  other  figures  were  of  wide  dis- 
tribution. The  same  pair  of  subjects  is  found  on  the  end  blocks  of  a  mantel  in  the 
Otis  house,  Boston  (figure  210),  and  on  those  of  one  at  Vernon.    A  favorite  motive 


Figure  216.     Mantel  from  the  Registry  of  Deeds,  Salem.     Samuel  Mclntire,  1807 
In  the  possession  of  the  Essex  Institute 

tor  central  panels  was  a  reclining  figure  ot  Plenty  with  a  cornucopia.  This  is  found 
in  mantels  of  the  Jerathmeel  Peirce  and  Hersey  Derby  houses  in  Salem,''  in  the 
house  of  L.  M.  Blackford,  Fairfax  County,  Virginia,^  and  others.  Subjects  with 
numerous  figures  are  found  in  Bulfinch's  Otis  and  Hersey  Derby  houses,  in  Mcln- 
tire's  work  at  Oak  Hill  and  elsewhere,  in  the  Gore  house  (figure  211),  in  A'ernon, 
and  in  other  houses  of  the  period  from  179'?  to  1805. 


'  Wise  and  Beidleman,  "Colonial  Architecture,"  pp.  243,  245. 
^American  Architect,  vol.  55  (1897),  no.  1098. 
'  "Woodcarver  of  Salem,"  pis.  106,  61. 

257 


■•"Georgian  Period,"  part  I,  pi.  10. 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

A  few  exceptional  craftsmen,  above  all  Samuel  Mclntire,  had  skill  to  carve  mo- 
tives in  the  style  of  those  imported,  scarcely  yielding  to  them  in  mastery  and  hav- 
ing the  flavor  inherent  only  in  original  work.  Mclntire's  bill  for  carving  on  the 
Hasket  Derby  house,  dated  June  i8,  1798,  is  preserved  at  the  Essex  Institute.  In 
spite  of  the  use  of  a  great  deal  of  composition  ornament,  the  work  on  the  interior 
includes — besides  capitals,  modillions,  and  roses — festoons  tor  three  doors  in  one 
room,  forty  draperies  for  the  frieze  in  another,  "some  carving  on  a  chimneypiece" 
in  a  third.  Most  notable  of  Mclntire's  decorative  carvings  were  his  eagles,  of 
which  a  characteristic  example  is  that  of  a  mantel  from  the  Registry  of  Deeds, 
built  in  1807  (figure  216). 

The  embargo  of  1807  and  the  \Yar  of  181 2  tended  to  cut  off  the  foreign  supply 
of  composition  ornaments  and  stimulated  not  only  carving  but  domestic  manufac- 
ture. As  early  as  1798  Mclntire  had  made  for  Derby  "a  pattern  to  cast  some  roses 
from."  Among  the  first  of  the  later  products  were  small  medallion  reliefs  of  leading 
men.  Those  of  Hamilton,  whose  tragic  death  occurred  in  1804,  are  specially  nu- 
merous in  Salem,  a  Federalist  stronghold,  where  the  Essex  Institute  also  possesses 
two  unused  examples.  Later,  more  elaborate  motives  were  attempted.  Two  man- 
tels from  the  Beltzhoover  house,  Carlisle,  Pennsylvania,  now  in  the  Metropolitan 
Museum,  show,  respectively,  the  Battle  of  Lake  Erie  (figure  217),  and  a  sarcopha- 
gus surmounted  by  an  eagle  with  the  inscription:  "To  the  Memory  of  Departed 
Heroes,"  and  the  name  of  the  maker:  "R.  Wellford,  Phila.  delit."^  Robert  Well- 
ford  appears  in  the  Philadelphia  directories  from  1801  to  1839  as  "ornamental 
composition  manufacturer,"  and  in  1807  he  calls  his  product  the  "original  Ameri- 
can composition  ornament."  - 

Embargo  and  war  may  also  have  had  their  part  in  developing  a  substitute  for 
composition  ornament,  although  its  beginnings  fall  somewhat  earlier.  This  was  the 
ingenious  suggestion  of  similar  motives  by  the  aid  of  the  simplest  tools,  in  local 
vernacular  adaptations  of  much  interest  and  beauty.  Festoons  and  rosettes  indi- 
cated in  flutings  with  a  gouge  may  be  found  at  Upsala  in  1798,  and  other  festoons 
of  auger  holes  in  gradated  sizes  were  used  at  Woodlawn  in  1800.  In  the  Haven 
house,  Portsmouth,  the  ornament  is  outlined  by  triangular  incisions  made  with 
the  gouge.  Another  motive  was  the  interlace  of  narrow  bands  multiplied,  shown 
in  plate  32  of  Pain's  "Practical  Builder,"  in  the  Boston  edition  of  1792  (figure  218). 

^  These  are  discussed  by  A.  L.  Kocher,  their  discoverer,  in  the  Architfctural  Record,  vol.  50  (1921),  pp.  225- 
226.  To  assign  to  Wellford,  as  Kocher  does,  all  the  ornament  of  these  two  mantels,  and  then  all  those  of  other 
mantels  having  ornaments  identical  with  some  of  these,  and  so  forth,  even  to  Salem  in  1799,  is  to  carry  mfer- 
ence  too  far. 

-Bulk-tin  of  the  Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  vol.  14  (1919),  pp.  36-37. 

2^8 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

It  occurs  in  substantially  the  same  torm  in  the  cornice  of  a  room  from  Haverhill 
belonging  to  the  Metropolitan  Museum  (figure  219). 

Summarizing  the  development  ot  style  in  interior  detail,  we  may  distinguish 
several  successive  phases.  First,  a  transitional  or  "post-Colonial"  phase,  repre- 
sented by  the  Langdon,  John  Reynolds,  and  John  Brown  houses,  in  which  certain 
minor  elements  of  novelty  appear  in  houses  fundamentally  Colonial  in  style.  Sec- 
ondly, the  phase  of  x'\dam  inspiration  proper,  beginning  with  isolated  houses  in  the 
'eighties,  but  dominating  from  around  1792  to  about  the  time  of  the  Embargo  of 


Figure  217.      Mantel  with  orniiment  by  Robert  Wellford,  after  1813 
In  tlie  Metropolitan  Museum 


1807.  Then  followed  the  era  of  free  modification  of  x^dam  forms  exemplified  by 
Benjamin's  book  of  1806  and  the  Salem  houses  after  the  peace  of  1815.  Finally, 
about  182;;,  begins  the  supremacy  of  Greek  forms. 

A  word  may  be  permitted  in  conclusion  on  the  forces  which  ultimately  put  the 
classic  style  in  eclipse.  Romanticism  and  rationalism  combined  to  overshadow  it. 
Beginning  with  Latrobe's  design  for  Sedgley  near  Philadelphia  (1797),  and  stimu- 
lated by  Irving's  romantic  Sunnyside  (1835),  the  Gothic  revival  began  in  domestic 
architecture.    As  the  "English  cottage  style"  it  won  the  support  of  H.  W.  S.  Cleve- 

259 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

land  in  his  rationalistic  article  of  1836  in  the  North  American  Review,  and  was 
championed  in  the  works  of  Andrew  Jackson  Downing  from  1842.  By  1848  Mrs. 
Louisa  Carolina  Tuthill,  in  her  sketch  of  the  condition  of  architecture  in  the  United 
States,  could  speak  of  the  "Greek  mania"  as  having  passed  by. 

In  spite  of  the  variety  of  suggestions  which  it  followed,  and  the  disparity  of  its 
work  in  different  phases,  the  architecture  of  the  republic  during  its  first  half-cen- 
tury was  made  essentially  one  by  its  ultimate  inspiration  from  the  classic.  The 
triumph  of  literal  classicism  in  1825,  with  its  ideal  formal  schemes  of  temple  and 
rotunda,  had  been  prepared  by  Jefferson's  prophetic  insistence  on  these  very  types, 
from  the  time  of  the  Revolution  itself.     It  is  in  its  classical  essence,  moreover. 


Figure  21S.     Interlace  from  Pain's  Practical  Builder 


rather  than  in  the  less  austere  phases  of  transition  and  compromise,  that  American 
domestic  architecture  made  its  independent  contribution  to  universal  development. 
The  houses  of  the  second  quarter  of  the  century,  from  "Arlington"  and  "Anda- 
lusia" to  obscure  dwellings  of  the  Northwest,  represent  an  extreme  of  classicism 
which  has  no  counterpart  abroad. 

Criticism  of  such  buildings  from  a  functional  view-point  is  irrelevant  to  histori- 
cal consideration,  which  is  concerned  only  with  determining  and  understanding  the 
actual  course  of  evolution.  Whatever  be  thought  of  them,  there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  they  endowed  America  with  an  architectural  tradition  unsurpassed  in  the 
qualities  of  monumentality  and  dignity. 

It  is  only  this  unequalled  heritage  of  classical  monuments  from  the  formative 
period  of  the  nation  which  can  explain  America's  leadership  in  the  new  classical 
revival  of  the  present.  When  this  began  in  the  'nineties,  the  characteristic  striving 
elsewhere  was  toward  differentiation,  toward  original  forms  expressive  of  the  novel 
elements  in  modern  life,  rather  than  toward  unity  and  emphasis  on  the  elements 

260 


HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

of  continuity  with  the  past.  Its  vitality  in  America,  as  well  as  the  distinguishing 
austerity  ot  its  work,  are  due  to  the  familiarity  and  to  the  special  character  of  the 
early  buildings  of  the  republic,  to  the  effort  of  the  founders  to  establish  classic 
architecture  as  a  permanent  national  style. 


h!i»i'i'ih'iliU'i"i»iM'i«i»ih«i'i'i'ih'in'i'i'ihh'i' 


Figure  219.     Cornice  with  interlace,  from  the  Eagle  house,  Haverhill 
In  the  Metropolitan  Museum 


261 


CHRONOLOGICAL  CHART 


CHRONOLOGICAL  CHART 

HOUSES    OF  WHICH  THE   DATE   AND   AUTHORSHIP  ARE   ESTABLISHED 

BY  DOCUMENTS 


1651 

Begun 

1651 

or 

1652 

Between 

1651 

and 

1660 

Between 

1662 

and 

1666 

Before 

1669 

Between 

1661 
1670 

and 

1671 

About 

1 67 1 

Finished 

1675 

Before 

1676 

1676 

to 

1679 

Between 

1673 

and 

1682 

Between 

1677 

and 

1680 

Before 

1680 

After 

1679 
1680 

Before 

16S2 

1682 

to 

1683 

1683 

Between 

1681 

and 

1691 

Between 

1683 

and 

1692 

Between 

1682 

and 

1693 

After 

16S4 

Before 

1692 

1692 

Before 

1697 

After 

1695 

After 

1698 

Before 

1700 

1705 

to 

1706 

1707 

Between 

1708 

and 

1725 

1721 

to 

1722 

COLONIAL  HOUSES 

"Scotch  House,"  Saugus,  Massachusetts 

Warren  house,  Smith's  Fort,  Gray's  Creek,  Surry  County,  Virginia 

Eastern  part  of  Pickering  house,  Salem,  Massachusetts 

"Country  House"  and  Philip  Ludwell  house,  Jamestown,  A'irginia 

Western  part  of  WHiippIe  house,  Ipswich,  Massachusetts 

Narbonne  house,  Salem 

Henry  Bridgham  house  ("Julien's"),  Boston 

Western  part  of  Pickering  house,  Salem 

Jonathan  Corwin  ("Witch")  house,  Salem 

"Bacon's  Castle,"  Surry  County,  Virginia 

Peter  Sergeant  house  ("Province  House"),  Boston 

Deliverance  Parkman  house,  Salem 

Peter  Tufts  ("Cradock")  house,  Medford,  Massachusetts 

Main  body  of  Turner  house  ("House  of  the  Seven  Gables"),  Salem 

Daniel  Epes  house,  Salem 

"Old  Feather  Store,"  Boston 

Eastern  part  of  Whipple  house,  Ipswich 

William  Penn  ("Letitia")  house,  Philadelphia 

Capen  house,  Topsfield,  Massachusetts 

John  Foster  (Hutchinson)  house,  Boston 

Philip  English  house,  Salem 

Benjamin  Hooper  house  ("Old  Bakery"),  Salem 

John  Ward  house,  Salem 

South  wing  of  Turner  house,  Salem 

Fairfield  (Carter's  Creek),  Gloucester  County,  \'irginia 

Usher  house  (nucleus  of  Royall  house),  Medtord 

Benaiah  Titcomb  house,  Newburyport,  Massachusetts 

Hunt  house,  Salem 

"Slate  House,"  Philadelphia 

Governor's  Palace,  Williamsburg,  Virginia 

John  Williams  house,  Deerfield,  Massachusetts,  in  its  original  form 

The  Mulberry,  Goose  Creek,  South  Carolina 

Graeme  Park,  Horsham,  Pennsylvania.     John  Kirk 

265 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


Before 

Before 

Between 
After 

About 
Before 

Between 


I72t 


1728 


Unfinish& 
After 

Betweei 


Before 

After 

Before 


Between 
After 

After 

Begun 


1730 
730 

yn;  and  1730 
726 

730  to      1 73 1 
73^ 

1733 
733  and  1737 


735 
737  to 
739  to 
1      I744> 
745  to 
746 

/4^ 
74S 

743  'ind 
750 

751 

753  to 
754 
756 


1740 

1741 
1750 
1746 


i75j 


1755 


756 

757  to 

758 
758 
758 

759 
761 

761  to 
761  and 
761 
762 

763 
764 

763 
765 
765  to 
765  to 
767  to 

768 
768 

769  to 

771 


'757 

1758 
1758 


1762 
1764 


1768 
1769 
1770 


1771 


McPhedris  (Warner)  house,  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire 

Stenton,  Germantown,  Pennsylvania 

Tuckahoe,  Goochland  County,  Virginia 

Rosewell,  Gloucester  County,  Virginia 

Stratford,  Westmoreland  County,  Virginia 

Westover,  Charles  City  County,  Virginia 

John  Bartram  house,  Philadelphia,  in  its  original  form 

Ampthill,  Chesterfield  County,  Virginia 

Col.  Robert  Brewton's  house,  Charleston 

Second  enlargement  of  Royall  house,  Medford,  establishing  present  east 

facade 
Challoner  house,  Newport,  Rhode  Island.     Benjamin  JJ'yatt 
Hancock  house,  Boston 
Ayrault  house,  Newport.     Richard  Munday 
William  Browne  house,  Beverly,  Massachusetts 
Pinckney  house,  Colleton  Square,  Charleston 
Shirley  Place,  Roxbury,  Massachusetts 
Van  Cortlandt  house.  Lower  Yonkers,  New  York 
Daniel  Pastorius  house,  Germantown,  Pennsylvania 
Eveleigh  house,  Charleston 
Benjamin  Pickman  house,  Essex  Street,  Salem 
Carter's  Grove,  James  City  County,  Virginia.     David  Minitree 
Samuel  Colton  house,  Longmeadow,  Massachusetts.     Jolm  Steele 
Whitby  Hall,  Philadelphia 
Remodelling  of  John  Williams  house,  Deerfield 
Izard  house,  Charleston 
Woodford,  Philadelphia 

Drayton  Hall,  Ashley  River,  South  Carolina 
Ebenezer  Grant  house,  East  Windsor,  Connecticut 
Gunston  Hall,  Fairfax  County,  Virginia 
Mount  Airy,  Richmond  County,  ^'irginia 
Elsing  Green,  King  William  County,  \'irginia 
John  Vassall  (Longfellow)  house,  Cambridge 
Timothy  Orne  house,  Salem 
Schuyler  house,  Albany 
.Apthorp  house,  Cambridge 
Mount  Pleasant,  Philadelphia 
Mill  Grove,  Lower  Providence,  Pennsylvania 
Cliveden,  Germantown 

Pickman  house,  Washington  Street,  Salem,  in  its  original  form 
Whitehall,  Anne  Arundel  County,  Mar^'land 
Roger  Morris  (Jumel)  house,  New  York 
Van  Rensselaer  Manor  House,  .Albany 
Miles  Brewton  house,  Charleston.     Ezra  Waite 
Tryon's  Palace,  Newbern,  North  Carolina.     John  Hawks 
Jeremiah  Lee  house,  ALirblehead,  Massachusetts 
Johnson  house,  Germantown 
Chase  house,  Annapolis 
Copley  house,  Boston.     John  Singleton  Copley 

266 


CHRONOLOGICAL    CHART 

1771  to      177s     Monticello,  Albemarle  County,  \'irginia,  in  its  original  form.      Thomas 

Jefferson 
About       177-  John  Stuart  house,  Charleston 

1772  to     1774     Corbit  house,  Odessa,  Delaware 
'^113  ff-  Additions  to  Mount  Vernon 

1773  to     1777     Lansdowne,  Philadelphia 


1779 


After    I 

I 

779 
780 

Before 

I 

782 
782 

About   1 

783 

After    1 

783 

1 

784  to 

1785 

Between  i 

786  and 

1787 

1 

786  to 

1787 

Between  i 

782  and 

1789 

] 

787  to 

1790 

Before 

788 

1788 

Before 

1789 

After 

789 

About 

790 
790 

790  to 

1791 

791  to 

1801 

792 

792  to 

1797 

[792  to 

1829 

1793 

1793 

1793 

1793  to 

1795 

1793  to 

1796 

1793  to 

1801 

After 

1793 
1795 
1795 

1795  to 

1798 

1796 

1796/. 

1796  to 

1808 

1798 

Before 

1799 

17^8  to 

1800 

HOUSES  OF  THE  EARLY  REPUBLIC 

Designs  for  remodelling  the  Governor's  Palace,  Williamsburg,  and  for  the 

Governor's  house,  Richmond.     Jefferson 
Jerathmeel  Peirce  (Nichols)  house,  Salem.     Samuel  Mclntire 
Derby  house  near  Derby  Wharf,  Salem.     Mclntire 
Langdon  house,  Portsmouth 

Jonathan  Mulliken  (Cutler-Bartlett)  house,  Newburyport 
Rotonda  stuel)'  for  Governor's  house,  Richmond.     Jefferson 
Dyckman  house,  New  York 
Solitude,  Philadelphia 
Portico  of  Mount  Vernon 
John  Reynolds  (Morris)  house,  Philadelphia 
Boardman  house,  Salem 

Kensey  Johns  house,  Newcastle,  Delaware.     Peter  Jiistis? 
Bingham  house,  Philadelphia 
Remodelling  of  the  Woodlands,  Philadelphia 
John  Brown  house,  Providence,  Rhode  Island 
John  Marshall  house,  Richmond 

Remodelling  of  Pickman  house,  W'ashington  Street,  Salem.     Mclntij-e 
Board-Zabriskie  house,  Hackensack,  New  Jersey 
Government  House,  New  York.     JoJm  McComb  and  John  Robinson 
George  Read  II  house,  Newcastle,  Delaware 

Joseph  Barrell  house,  Charlestown,  Massachusetts.    Charles  Buljinch 
President's  house,  Philadelphia 
The  White  House,  Washington.     James  Hoban 
Nathan  Read  house,  Salem.     Mclntire 
Remodelling  of  the  Assembly  House,  Salem.     Mclntire 
Portico  of  Montpellier,  Orange  County,  Virginia 
Knox  house,  Thomaston,  Maine 
Franklin  Crescent,  Boston.     Bidfinch 

Robert  Morris  house,  Philatlelphia.     Pierre  Charles  U Enfant 
Lyman  house,  Waltham,  Massachusetts.     Mclntire 
Joseph  Hosmer  house,  Salem 

Harrison  Gray  Otis  house,  Cambridge  Street,  Boston 
Elias  Hasket  Derby  house,  Salem.     Mclntire 
Morton  (Taylor)  house,  Roxbury 
Middleton  (Pinckney)  house,  Charleston 
Remodelling  of  Monticello.     Jefferson 
Upsala,  Germantown 

Ezekiel  Hersey  Derby  house,  Salem.     Bulfinch 
The  Octagon,  Washington,     iniliam  Thornton 

267 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 


1798  to 

1800 

1798/. 

1799 

1799  to 

iSoo 

Between 

1799  and 
1800/. 

1804 

1800  to 

1801 

1800  to 

1801 

1800  to 

1801 

After 

1800 
I80I 
I80I 

1801  to 

1802 

1802  to 

1803 

Between 

1803  and 

1804 

Before 

1804 

1804  to 

1S05 

After 

1804 
1805 
1805 
1805 
1805 

Finished 

1806 

After 

1806 

Between 

1806  and 

1807 

1807 

1811 

1807  to 

1808 

1808  to 

iSii 

1809 

1809 

1809 

Between 

1808  and 

1811 

Before 

1810 

t8ii 

After 

1810 
1812 

1812  to 

1813 

1813 

1813/- 

1813  to 

1819 

18 1 5  to 

1817 

I8I6 

I8I6 

Finislned 

I8I7 

1817 

1 8 17  to 

1819 

Homewood,  Baltimore 

Edgehill,  Albemarle  County,  Virginia,  in  its  original  form.     Jcjfersoii 

Bulfinch  house,  Bulfinch  Place,  Boston.     Bnlfimh 

Sedgley,  Philatlelphia.     Benjamin  Henry  Latrobe 

Rebuilding  of  Gore  house,  Waltham 

Woodlawn,  Fairfax  County,  Virginia 

Oak  Hill,  Danvers,  Massachusetts 

Harrison  Gray  Otis  house,  Mount  Vernon  Street,  Boston.     Bulfiueh 

Sansom's  Buildings,  Philadelphia.    Latrobe  and  Thomas  Carstairs 

Wilson  Glover  house  (Charleston  Club),  Charleston 

The  Grange,  New  York.     McComb 

William  Gray  house,  Salem 

Burd  house,  Philadelphia.     Latrobe 

Remodelling  of  Farmington,  Albemarle  County,  \'irginia.     Jefferson 

Thomas  Amory  (Ticknor)  house,  Boston 

Plan  for  Pantops,  executed  at  Poplar  Forest,  Bedford  Count}',  A'irginia, 

1 806-1 809.     Jefferson 
Houses  nos.  1-4  Park  Street,  Boston.     Bulfinch 
Samuel  Cook  (Oliver)  house,  Salem.     Mclntire 
Crafts  house,  Roxbury.     Peter  Banner 
Enoch  Thurston  (Shepard)  house,  Newburyport 
John  Gardner  (Pingree)  house,  Salem.     Mclntire 
Hunnewell  (Shepley)  house,  Portland,  Maine.    Alexander  Parris 
Radcliffe  (King)  house,  Charleston 
Parkman  houses,  Bowdoin  Square,  Boston.     Bulfinch 
Enoch  Dow  house,  Salem.     Mclntire 
House  of  the  Registrar  of  Deeds,  Salem.     Mclntire 
Harrison  Gray  Otis  house.  Beacon  Street,  Boston 
Wain  house,  Philadelphia.     Latrobe 
Markoe  house,  Philadelphia.     Latrobe 
Gideon  Tucker  (Rice)  house,  Salem.     Mclntire 
Remodelling  of  Oakley,  Watertown,  Massachusetts 
Buildings   on    9th    Street,    between   Walnut    and   Locust,    Philadelphia. 

Robert  Mills 
Joseph  Felt  (Chapman)  house,  Salem.     Mclntire 
Nathaniel  Russell  house,  Charleston 
Colonnade  Row,  Boston.     Bulfinch 
Tudor  Place,  Georgetown.      Thor7iton 
Wickham  house  (Valentine  Museum),  Richmond.     Mills 
Brockenbrough  house,  Richmond.     Mills 
Portico  of  Belleview,  Washington.     Latrobe 
Ashland,  Kentuck}-.     Latrobe 
Van  Ness  house,  Washington.     Latrobe 
Ampthill,  Cumberland  County,  Virginia.     Jefferson 
Nichols  house.  Chestnut  Street,  Salem.     Jabez  Smith 
David  Sears  house  (nucleus  of  Somerset  Club),  Boston.     Parris 
Larkin  house,  Portsmouth 

Barboursville,  Orange  County,  Virginia.     Jefferson 
Decatur  house,  Washington.     Latrobe 

268 


1817 

to 

1824 

1818 

to 

1819 

1818 

to 

1819 

1818 

to 

1819 

1819 

1822 

to 

1823 

Before 

1826 

1829 

to 

1830 

Before 

1832 

Before 

1832 

Between 

1829 

and 

1833 

Between 

1829 

and 

1833 

i8j3 

to 

1834 

1833 

to 

1836 

1834 

to 

1836 

1835 

1835 

to 

1836 

1835 

to 

1840 

1836 

to 

1837 

1840 

1840 

to 

1843 

1850 

1857 

CHRONOLOGICAL    CHART 

Pavilions  of  tiie  University  ot  Virginia.     Jcjfcrso?! 

Forrester  house  (Salem  Club),  Salem 

John  Andrew  (Safford)  house,  Salem 

Nathaniel  Silsbee  house,  Salem 

Dudley  L.  Pickman  (Shreve-Little)  house,  Salem 

Pickering  Dodge  house,  Salem.     David  Lord 

Arlington,  Alexandria  County,  Virginia.     George  Hadfield 

Daniel  Waldo  house,  Worcester,  Massachusetts.     Elias  Carter 

Russel  house,  Middletown,  Connecticut 

Joseph  Bowers  house,  Northampton,  Massachusetts 

Hillhouse  house.  New  Haven.     Ithiel  Town  and  Alexander  Jackson  Davis 

Skinner  (Trowbridge)  house,  New  Haven.     Town  and  Davis 

Simeon  Burt  house,  Worcester.     Carter 

Colonnade  Row,  New  York 

Andalusia,  Bucks  County,  Pennsylvania 

Remodelling  of  Sunnyside,  Tarry  town.  New  York.     George  Harvey 

Rebuilding  of  The  Hermitage,  Nashville,  Tennessee.    Joseph  Riejf 

Berry  Hill,  Halifax  County,  Virginia 

Stephen  Salisbury  house,  Worcester 

.Smith  house,  Grass  Lake,  Michigan 

Dexter  house,  Dexter,  Michigan 

Chapel  house,  Sandstone  Township,  Michigan 

Bean  house,  Concord,  Michigan 


269 


NOTES   ON   INDIVIDUAL   HOUSES 

DATE,  AUTHORSHIP,  AND  ORIGINAL  FORM 


NOTES   ON   INDIVIDUAL   HOUSES 

DATE,  AUTHORSHIP,  AND  ORIGINAL  FORM 

Towns  and  plantations  are  arranged  alphabetically,  with  houses  under  a  given  town  alphabetically  by  the 
name  of  the  original  owner  (in  most  cases),  with  references  from  other  names  commonly  used. 

Houses  designed  by  Samuel  Mclntire  are  reserved  for  discussion  in  the  writer's  forthcoming  work  on  Mclntire. 
For  houses  by  Jefferson,  see  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect"  (1916). 

Albaxv,  New  York.. — Schuyler  House.  The  bills  of  mechanics,  from  1761  and  1762,  are  listed 
and  reproduced  in  facsimile  in  "The  Schuyler  Mansion"  (191 1),  by  Georgiana  Schuyler, 
pp.  s-8. 

Van  Rensselaer  Manor-House  (fig.  50).  It  bore  the  date  1765  in  conspicuous  letters  of 
wrought  iron  on  one  of  the  outer  walls,  having  been  erecteci  by  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer,  who 
married  Catherine  Livingston  in  1764.  T.  A.  Glenn,  "Some  Colonial  Mansions,"  p.  156. 
The  house  was  drastically  remodelled  by  Richard  LTpjohn  in  1 840-1 843,  as  described  by  M.  T. 
Reynolds,  "The  Colonial  Buildings  of  Rensselaerwyck,"  Architectural  Record,  vol.  4  (1895), 
p.  425,  and  ultimately  torn  down  in  1893.  Reynolds  shows  a  plan  and  exterior  of  the  house 
as  remodelled,  and  interior  views  of  the  old  work. 

Ampthill,  Chesterfield  County,  Virginia.  The  traditional  date  of  the  house,  1732,  is  not 
contradicted  by  public  records.  Fairfax  Harrison,  the  discriminating  historian  of  the  Carys, 
writes  us:  "Henry  Cary  moved  from  Williamsburg  to  Henrico  in  1727  and  established  himself 
on  the  south  side  of  the  James  at  the  place  to  which  he  gave  the  name  'Warwick,'  where  later 
he  built  his  mill.  He  then  and  until  1732  described  himself  in  deeds,  etc.,  as  of  'Warwick'  in 
Henrico,  as  shown  by  the  county  records.  After  1732  he  described  himself  as  of  the  parish 
of  Dale.  He  never  used  the  name  Ampthill  as  did  his  son,  not  even  in  his  will,  1748.  In  1730 
he  sold  his  inherited  lands  in  Warwick  County  and  was  then  in  funds  to  build  a  new  house." 

Andalusia,  Bensalem  Township,  Bucks  County,  Pennsylvania.  The  original  house,  with 
octagonal  ends,  was  built  by  John  Craig  after  1794.  The  front  to  the  Delaware  (fig.  139), 
with  its  portico,  was  added  by  Nicholas  Biddle  in  1 834-1 836,  under  the  supervision  of  Thomas 
LI.  Walter,  according  to  bills  in  the  possession  of  Edward  Biddle.  The  library  wing  was  added 
at  the  same  period. 

Annapolis,  Maryland. — Chase  House.  The  documents  which  justify  the  attribution  ot  the 
house  to  the  years  1769-1771,  between  the  purchase  of  the  land  by  Samuel  Chase  and  its  sale 
with  improvements  to  Edward  Lloyd,  are  given  by  J.  M.  Hammond,  "Colonial  Mansions  of 
Maryland  and  Delaware"  (1914),  pp.  18-19.  Measured  drawings  and  photographs  are  pub- 
lished by  Coffin  and  Holden,  "Brick  Architecture  of  the  Colonial  Period  in  Maryland  and 
Virginia"  (1919),  plates  13-19.  A  plan  is  shown  there,  p.  12;  a  more  accurate  one,  by  T.  H. 
Randall,  in  the  Architectural  Record,  vol.  i  (1891),  p.  328  {cf.  figs.  46  and  103). 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Arlingtox,  Alexandria  County,  Virginia  (fig.  ij8).  Although  George  Washington  Parke 
Custis  may  have  erected  some  building  on  the  Arlington  estate  as  early  as  1802  the  mansion 
as  it  stands  to-day  was  built  much  later.  His  daughter,  the  wife  of  Robert  E.  Lee,  writes 
that  at  first  he  "lived  in  a  small  cottage  on  the  Potomac.  .  .  .  He  then  built  the  two  wings 
now  at  Arlington;  married  in  Alexandria  and  brought  his  bride  .  .  .  there,  and  we  lived  in 
them  many  years.  I  can  just  remember  when  the  middle  house  was  built,  but  do  not  recollect 
the  date.  It  was  never  completed  until  just  before  the  war,  as  .  .  .  the  means  were  not  at 
hand  for  finishing  it."  This  is  quoted  by  Laura  Carter  HoUoway,  "The  Ladies  of  the  White 
House"  (1886),  pp.  58-60.  As  Mrs.  Lee  was  born  October  i,  1808,  the  "middle  house"  must 
have  been  occupied  by  1820  at  latest.  The  portico  was  doubtless  the  last  exterior  element 
to  be  finished,  although  it  was  apparently  complete  in  1830,  when  it  was  described  by  Jonathan 
Elliot  in  his  "Historical  Sketches  of  .  .  .  the  District  of  Columbia,"  pp.  290-291,  and  drawn 
by  him  for  the  "Washington  Guide"  of  that  year.  William  Dunlap,  "History  of  the  Arts 
of  Design"  (1834),  vol.  i,  p.  336,  gives  the  name  of  the  architect,  George  Hadfield,  who  died 
in  1826. 

Ashland,  Kentucky.  The  home  of  Henry  Clay  was  originally  built  in  1813  and  following  years, 
from  designs  of  Latrobe,  as  is  indicated  by  a  letter  of  Latrobe,  dated  August  13,  1813,  in  the 
possession  ot  Ferdinand  C.  Latrobe.  It  was  gutted  by  fire  in  the  middle  ot  the  century,  and 
only  the  general  form  was  preserved  in  the  rebuilding. 

Bacon's  Castle,  Surry  County,  Virginia,  so  called  from  its  having  served  as  the  stronghold  of 
those  concerned  in  Bacon's  Rebellion  in  1676,  when  it  is  spoken  of  as  "x'\llen's  brick  house." 
It  was  then  the  property  of  Major  Arthur  Allen,  who  had  received  the  estate  as  an  inheritance 
from  his  father,  Arthur  Allen,  a  justice  of  the  peace  for  the  county,  who  came  from  England 
in  1649  and  dieci  in  1670.  See  R.  A.  Lancaster,  "Historic  Virginia  Homes"  (1915),  p.  50.  See 
also  "Old  Places  in  Surry  County"  in  William  arid  Mary  Quarterly,  vol.  5  (1897),  pp.  189-190, 
and  vol.  8  (1900),  p.  151.  A  woodcut  of  it  was  published  in  Frank  Leslie  s  Illustrated  JVeckly 
before  i860  (fig.  21).  A  measured  survey  of  the  existing  house  made  in  1919  by  Donald  Millar, 
under  a  grant  from  the  Foundation  for  Research  in  American  Art,  will  shortly  be  published  in 
the  Architectural  Record.  We  are  fortunate  to  be  able  to  show  three  of  the  principal  drawings 
here  (fig.  20). 

Berry  Hill,  Halifax  County,  Virginia  (fig.  140).  The  plain  house  built  by  Edward  Carrington 
on  the  plantation  was,  writes  Philip  Alexander  Bruce,  "bought  by  my  uncle  (James  Coles 
Bruce)  sometime  between  1835  and  1840,  and  my  impression  is  that  he  completely  remodelled 
it."  The  present  owner  of  the  estate,  Malcolm  G.  Bruce,  and  other  members  of  the  family, 
name  the  same  period  as  that  of  the  rebuilding  of  the  house. 

Beverly,  Massachusetts. — William  Browne  House,  Folly  Hill.  Doctor  Alexander  Hamilton 
described  this  in  his  "Itinerarium"  (1907)  on  his  visit  to  it  in  1744,  and  wrote  "it  is  not  yet 
quite  finished"  (p.  147).  Captain  Francis  Goelet's  "Journal"  for  October  20,  1750,  in  its 
description  says:  "Nor  is  the  Building  yet  Compleat,  wants  a  Considerable  workman  Ship  to 
Compleat  it,  so  as  the  design  is."  New  Erigland  Historical  and  Genealogical  Register,  vol.  24 
(1870),  p.  57.  The  house  has  long  been  demolished;  a  reservoir  now  occupies  its  site.  A  por- 
trait of  Browne's  wife,  Mary  Burnet,  now  in  Baltimore,  shows  the  house  in  the  background. 
The  Historical  Collections  of  the  Essex  Institute,  vol.  31  (1895),  ^^^  ^^  article  on  it,  and  gives, 
p.  312,  a  plan  made  from  the  foundations  then  existing. 

Boston,  Massachusetts.     See  also  Charlestown,  Dorchester,  Jamaica  Plain,  and  Roxbury. 

274 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    HOUSES 

Thomas  Amorv  (Ticknor)  House,  Park  and  Beacon  Streets  (fig.  165).  The  deed  of  the  land 
to  Thomas  Amory  was  recorded  on  November  22,  1803.  In  a  conveyance  of  1804  a  building 
on  this  lot  was  mentioned,  and  in  1 807,  in  a  conveyance  from  Amory  to  Samuel  Dexter,  a 
dwelling-house  is  mentioned.  Close  analogies  with  other  dwellings  designed  by  Bulfinch  would 
indicate  that  he  was  the  architect,  as  he  is  known  to  have  been  of  the  adjacent  houses  on 
Park  Street.  The  house  was  later  subdivided,  and  a  separate  entrance  made  on  Beacon  Street. 
It  has  since  been  remodelled  into  offices,  but  the  porch  is  substantially  intact.  Old  photo- 
graphs, both  of  the  exterior  and  ot  the  interior,  are  among  those  lent  to  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  by  Ogden  Codman. 

Henry  Bridgham  House.  Deacon  Henry  Bridgham,  who  died  March  12,  1670-1,  in  his  will, 
executeci  November  8,  1670,  provided:  "The  new  house  that  I  have  raised  &  proceeding 
in  the  building  of  itt,  my  will  is  that  out  of  the  estate  it  be  finished,  made  habitable."  It  be- 
came Julien's  restaurant  by  deed  of  July,  1794,  and  was  taken  down  in  July,  1824.  See  N.  B. 
ShurtleflF,  "Topographical  and  Historical  Description  of  Boston"  (1871),  pp.  654-660;  C.  Shaw, 
"Description  of  Boston"  (1817),  pp.  289-290,  with  a  cut  which  we  reproduce  (fig.  7). 

Colonnade  Row.  This  block  of  houses,  nineteen  in  all,  on  Tremont  Street,  facing  the  Com- 
mon, was  designed  by  Bulfinch  in  1810,  according  to  E.  S.  Bulfinch,  "Charles  Bulfinch,"  p.  122. 

John  Singleton  Copley  House.  The  letters  quoted  in  our  text,  and  many  others  in  the  "Cop- 
ley-Pelham  Letters,"  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  vol.  71,  show  that  the 
house  was  in  course  of  erection  in  1771,  and  that  Copley  was  his  own  architect.  Some  of  his 
drawings  are  reproduced  there,  facing  pp.  136  and  232. 

"The  Old  Feather  Store,"  formerly  standing  on  Dock  Square  at  the  corner  of  Ann  or  North 
Street.  Demolished  July,  i860.  See  N.  B.  Shurtleff,  "Topographical  and  Historical  Descrip- 
tion of  Boston"  (1871),  p.  648.  C.  H.  Snow,  "History  of  Boston,"  second  edition  (1828), 
quoted  in  the  text,  gives  a  woodcut,  p.  166,  and  says  further:  "The  peaks  of  the  roof  remain 
precisely  as  they  were  first  erected,  the  frame  and  external  appearance  ne\er  having  been 
altered.  The  timber  used  in  the  building  was  principally  oak.  .  .  ."  A  woodcut  from  a  paint- 
ing of  1 8 17  at  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  is  given  in  J.  W.insor,  "Memorial  History 
of  Boston,"  vol.  X  (1880),  p.  547.  None  of  these  views  reveals  substantial  differences  from  the 
building  as  shown  by  photographs. 

Foster  (Hutchinson)  House.  "In  some  family  memorandums  of  Thomas  (Hutchinson),  he 
.  .  .  writes  of  himself: 'Thomas  Hutchinson  .  .  .  was  born  in  Boston,  Sunday,  September  9th, 
171 1  .  .  .  and  was  the  first  person  born  in  the  house  which  had  been  built  between  twenty 
and  thirty  years,  and  which  afterwards  came  to  him  by  inheritance.'"  P.  O.  Hutchinson, 
"Diary  of  Thomas  Hutchinson"  (1884),  vol.  I,  pp.  46-47.  The  house  had  been  built  by  John 
Foster,  his  mother's  father.  In  1748  the  roof  and  lantern  at  least  suffered  from  fire.  11/.,  p. 
54.  August  26,  1765,  it  was  sacked  by  a  mob.  An  officer,  addressing  the  Lords  of  Trade,  wrote: 
"As  for  the  house,  which  from  the  structure  and  inside  finishing  seemed  to  be  from  a  design  of 
Inigo  Jones  or  his  successor,  it  appears  they  were  a  long  time  resolved  to  level  it  to  the  ground. 
They  worked  three  hours  at  the  cupola  before  they  could  get  it  down,  and  they  uncovered  part 
of  the  roof;  but  I  suppose,  that  the  thickness  of  the  walls,  which  were  of  very  fine  brickwork, 
adorned  with  Ionic  pilasters  worked  into  the  wall,  prevented  their  completing  their  purpose." 
C.  H.  Snow,  "History  of  Boston,"  second  edition  (1828).  The  house  was  repaired  and  stood 
until  1833,  when  it  was  demolished,  one  of  the  pilaster  capitals  going  to  the  Massachusetts 
Historical  Society  (fig.  37).  A  view  (fig.  36)  is  published  in  the  American  Magazine  of  Useful 
and  Entertaining  Knowledge^  February,  1836;  a  description  of  the  interior,  in  Lydia  Maria 
Child's  novel,  "The  Rebels." 

275 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Franklin  Crescent.  A  full  account  of  this  enterprise  ot  Bultincii,  1793  to  1796,  is  given  by 
E.  S.  Bulfinch,  "Ciiarles  Bulfinch,"  pp.  98-102.  Bulfinch's  original  drawing  for  the  central 
pavilion,  preserved  at  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology,  is  reproduced  there,  facing 
p.  100,  as  well  as  the  contemporary  engraving  from  the  Massachusetts  Magazine,  1794  (fig.  150). 

Hancock  House.  The  contract  for  freestone  work,  between  Thomas  Hancock  anci  Thomas 
Johnson,  of  Middletown,  Connecticut,  dated  in  the  "tenth  year  of  the  reign  of  .  .  .  George 
the  Second"  (1737),  is  published  with  many  other  documents  by  Arthur  Gilman  in  "The 
Hancock  House,"  Atlantic  Monthly,  vol.  11  (1863),  pp.  692-707.  Hancock's  first  letter  from 
the  new  house  is  dated:  "At  my  house  in  Beacon  Street,  Boston  y"  22'^  Mar,  1739-40"  (/.  e., 
1740).  The  Boston  Public  Library  has  the  bills  to  Hancock  from  William  More,  the  joiner  who 
panelled  the  "Loer  Rume"  and  the  "Chamber"  in  1745-1746.  Two  large  wings  shown  in  old 
views,  the  one  on  the  east  side  containing  a  ballroom,  the  other  a  kitchen  and  other  offices,  had 
disappeared  long  prior  to  1863,  when  the  house  itself  was  torn  down.  Photographs  of  the 
exterior  exist  (fig.  34),  as  well  as  a  unique  series  of  measured  drawings,  which  we  are  privileged 
to  reproduce  through  the  very  great  kindness  of  R.  Clipston  Sturgis  (figs.  40,  58,  and  100); 
there  are  also  front  and  rear  elevations.  Three  interior  photographs,  too  faint  to  reproduce 
successfully,  are  in  the  Hancock  Collection  of  the  Bostonian  Society  at  the  Old  State  House. 
The  main  staircase  is  incorporated  in  a  house  at  Manchester,  Massachusetts  (fig.  loi).  A 
baluster  from  the  same  stair  and  one  from  the  roof  railing  are  at  the  Essex  Institute  (nos.  2086 
and  102937  respectively),  together  with  two  capitals  (no.  2038,  fig.  78).  A  larger  capital, 
evidently  from  the  "Loer  Rume,"  is  in  the  National  Museum,  Independence  Hall,  Philadelphia. 
The  Massachusetts  Historical  Society  has  one  of  the  carveci  modillions  from  the  cornice 
(fig.  62). 

Harris  House.  William  Bentley  wrote  in  his  Diary,  November  2,  1797,  when  on  a  visit  to 
Boston,  of  "the  new  &  lofty  House  of  Mr.  Harris  which  is  erected  on  the  south  side  of  Fort 
Hill.  This  Building  is  of  five  Stories,  a  height  unknown  in  the  town,  is  plain,  of  Brick,  &  is 
not  yet  finished  within.  .  .  ."  An  elevation  and  a  sketch  of  the  house  are  preserved  by  the 
Bostonian  Society. 

Harrison  Gray  Otis  House,  Cambridge  Street  (fig.  161).  The  tiate  of  building  is  given  as 
1795  by  S.  E.  Morrison  in  his  detailed  and  circumstantial  account  of  Otis  in  the  Bulletin  of  the 
Society  for  the  Preservation  of  New  England  Antiquities,  no.  16  (1916),  p.  193.  Cf.  also  his 
"Harrison  Gray  Otis"  (1913),  vol.  i,  p.  44.  The  house  was  purchased  by  the  Society  in  1916, 
and  an  account  of  its  condition  at  that  time  and  of  the  restorations  undertaken  may  be  found 
in  that  and  subsequent  Bulletins.  A  crude  engraving  of  the  front  in  its  original  condition  is 
given  as  the  frontispiece  of  "The  Ladies'  Medical  Oracle"  (1834).  Relying  on  this,  the  Society 
has  placed  a  semicircular  porch  in  front  of  the  doorway,  although  it  cannot  be  certain  that  the 
engraver  did  not  mean  to  indicate  merely  an  elliptical  fanlight  over  columnar  mullions.  An 
elevation  generally  similar  to  the  facade  of  this  house,  by  Charles  Bulfinch,  the  architect  of 
Otis's  house  on  Mount  Vernon  Street,  is  preserved  at  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology (fig.  172).  As  the  doorway  in  this  is  based  on  one  in  Plaw's  "Rural  Architecture"  (pi. 
24),  which  appeared  in  1796,  it  would  seem  that  it  cannot  be  the  design  for  this  very  house,  but 
in  view  of  its  similarity,  of  Bulfinch's  known  relation  with  Otis,  and  of  the  fact  that  the  Adam 
detail  found  in  the  house  had  but  just  been  introduced  into  New  England  by  Bulfinch,  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  Bulfinch  was  the  architect  of  the  house  on  Cambridge  Street  {cf.  fig.  210). 

Harrison  Gray  Otis  House,  85  Mount  Vernon  Street  (fig.  161).  The  date  is  given  as  1801 
in  Mr.  Morrison's  "Otis,"  p.  229.  Miss  Bulfinch  states  that  Bulfinch  was  the  architect.  E.  S. 
Bulfinch,  "Charles  Bulfinch,"  p.  127. 

276 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    HOUSES 

Harrison-  Gray  Otis  House,  45  Beacon  Street.  Mr.  Morrison's  account,  p.  229,  fixes  the  date 
as  1807.  Otis's  connection  with  Bulfinch,  as  well  as  the  style  of  the  house  itself,  suggests  that 
this  building  also  was  his  work.  Until  1831  the  house  stood  free  on  the  east.  The  interior  has 
been  somewhat  modified,  especially  the  mantels  and  stairs.  Measured  drawings  by  Ogden 
Codman  show  its  original  form.  A  fine  photograph  of  the  exterior  is  in  J.  M.  Corner  and  E.  E. 
Soderholtz,  "Colonial  Architecture  in  New  England,"  plate  50. 

Nos.  I  TO  4  Park  Street.  In  "The  Life  of  John  Collins  Warren  .  .  .  compiled  chiefly  fron  his 
autobiography  and  journals"  by  Edward  Warren  (i860),  Dr.  Warren  states  under  date  of 
August  6,  1849  (v-ol.  2,  p.  23):  "Mr.  Davis  lent  me  a  copy  of  the  original  deed  of  land  of  my 
house  in  Park  Street,  given  by  Arnold  Welles  to  him.  He  (Davis)  built  both  houses:  the  one, 
for  Mr.  Welles;  the  other,  for  himself.  The  latter  he  sold  to  Francis  C.  Lowell,  who  after  fin- 
ishing it  off,  sold  it.  The  date  of  the  deed  was  August  5,  1805;  but  the  land  was  sold  by  the 
town  to  Mr.  Welles  in  March,  1801.  I  inhabited  the  house  in  October,  1805, — two  months 
after  the  deed  was  given."  The  deed  from  Davis  to  Lowell  was  also  of  August  5,  1805.  Three 
plans  of  this  pair  ot  houses,  with  an  "Elevation  of  four  houses  proposed  to  be  built  on  Park 
Street,"  signed  by  Charles  Bulfinch,  are  preserved  by  the  present  Dr.  John  Collins  Warren 
(figs.  151  and  152).     Fine  old  photographs  of  the  houses  are  preserved  by  the  Bostonian  Society. 

Parrmax  Houses,  Bowdoin  Square  (fig.  166).  The  original  design  for  these  houses,  a  story 
less  in  height,  is  preserveci  among  Bulfinch's  drawings  at  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Tech- 
nology. The  paper  is  watermarked  1806,  which  would  place  the  date  of  the  houses  probably 
two  or  three  years  later.  The  houses,  which  stood  between  Green  Street  and  Cambridge  Street, 
were  built  by  Samuel  Parkman  tor  his  two  daughters,  Mrs.  Edward  Blake  and  Mrs.  Edward 
Tuckerman. 

Provixce  House.     See  Peter  Sergeant  House. 

David  Sears  House,  Beacon  Street.  The  date,  1816,  and  the  name  of  the  architect,  .Alexander 
Parris,  are  inscribed  on  a  stone  in  the  basement,  reproduced  in  the  history  of  the  Somerset 
Club,  which  has  long  occupied  the  house.  Extensive  remodellings  were  made  when  it  took 
possession,  including  the  addition  of  an  upper  story  and  the  lengthening  of  the  fa9ade,  with 
the  duplication  of  its  projecting  bay.  A  perspective  view  of  the  house  restored  to  its  original 
condition,  by  Ogden  Codman,  is  reproduced  in  the  history  of  the  club,  facing  p.  6  {cf.  fig.  127). 

Peter  Sergeaxt  House  (fig.  24).  Sergeant  bought  the  land  October  21,  1676.  In  the  iron  rail- 
ing crowning  a  small  portico  of  two  columns  over  the  door  were  interwoven:  16  PS  79.  The 
house  was  purchased  from  Sergeant's  heirs  by  the  province  by  deeds  of  April  nth  and  12th, 
1716,  and  was  known  henceforth  as  the  "Province  House."  Apparently  it  was  not  radically 
remodelled  just  at  that  time,  for  in  June,  1716,  the  sum  of  £20  was  appropriated  for  the  pur- 
chase of  ornamental  hangings  for  decorating  the  house.  A  view  of  the  house  is  shown  by  S.  A. 
Drake,  "Old  Landmarks  and  Historic  Personages  of  Boston"  (1873),  P-  -35-  Hawthorne  gives 
in  "Twice-Told  Tales"  some  description  of  the  interior  as  it  was  about  1840:  "A  wide  door 
with  double  leaves  admitted  me  to  the  hall  or  entry."  In  the  room  to  the  right  he  mentions 
"the  panelled  wainscot  .  .  .  a  chimney-piece  set  round  with  Dutch  tiles  of  blue-figured  China, 
representing  scenes  from  Scripture."  "The  great  staircase  .  .  .  winds  through  the  midst  ot 
the  house  by  flights  of  broad  steps,  each  flight  terminating  in  a  square  landing-place.  ...  .A 
carved  balustrade  .  .  .  borders  the  staircase  with  its  quaintly  twisted  and  intertwined  pillars, 
from  top  to  bottom."  In  1851  the  interior  was  radically  remodelled;  in  1S64  it  was  gutted  by 
fire.     See  N.  B.  Shurtleft",  "Topographical  and  Historical  Description  ot  Boston"  (1871),  pp. 

^77 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

594  ff.  Some  of  the  panelling  is  incorporated  in  the  Indian  Hill  house  at  West  Newbury.  A 
banister  is  preserved  in  the  Essex  Institute  Museum,  No.  1612.  The  carved  arms  of  England, 
as  well  as  the  weather-vane,  which  adorned  the  house  when  it  belonged  to  the  province, 
are  in  the  museum  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society. 

Cambridge,  Massachusetts. — Apthorp  House.  East  Apthorp  was  appointed  to  the  mission  in 
Cambridge  in  1759.  Christ  Church  was  built  1759-1761.  Meanwhile  Apthorp  had  married, 
"and  in  1761  there  was  erected  for  him,  and  apparently  by  him  ...  a  spacious  and  splendid 
mansion."  S.  A.  Drake,  "History  of  Middlesex  County,"  vol.  i  (1880),  p.  235-  Apthorp  re- 
turned to  England  in  1764.  The  house  has  had  an  attic  story  added,  and  has  been  moved  and 
otherwise  modified,  but  the  exterior  is  substantially  intact. 

John  Vassall  (Longfellow)  House  (figs.  46  and  68).  S.  F.  Batchelder,  the  painstaking  student 
of  the  Vassall  family  records,  states  that  it  was  built,  "all  of  a  piece,"  in  1759.  "Notes  on 
Colonel  Henry  Vassall"  (1917),  p.  14-  The  additions  made  by  Andrew  Craigie  after  the  Revolu- 
tion are  brought  out  in  the  very  complete  measured  drawings  by  Donald  Millar,  "Some  Colo- 
nial and  Georgian  Houses,"  vol.  2,  plates  52-62. 

Carter's  Creek.     See  Fairfield. 

Carter's  Grove,  James  City  County,  Virginia  (figs.  47,  53,  and  54).  An  old  plantation  account- 
book  of  Carter  Burwell,  the  owner,  shows  that  the  house  was  begun  in  June  and  finished  in 
September,  1751;  also  that  a  "master  workman,"  David  Minitree,  was  brought  from  England 
especially  for  the  work.  These  facts  and  many  additional  items  are  given  by  R.  A.  Lancaster, 
"Historic  Virginia  Homes"  (1915),  p.  54- 

Charleston,  South  Carolina. — William  Brandford  (Horry)  House,  Meeting  and  Tradd 
Streets.  Legal  documents  make  clear  that  the  house  was  built  between  the  marriage  of 
William  Brandford  with  Elizabeth  Savage  in  1751  and  his  death  in  1767.  Smith,  "Dwelling 
Houses  of  Charleston,"  pp.  104  ff.,  where  plans,  views,  and  details  are  given. 

Miles  Brewton  (Pringle)  House,  King  Street  (fig.  46).  The  account  of  the  house  in  Alice  R. 
Huger  Smith's  "The  Pringle  House"  (1914)  makes  clear  that  Miles  Brewton  began  the  house 
soon  after  1765.  An  advertisement  of  "Ezra  Waite,  Civil  Architect,  Housebuilder  in  general, 
and  Carver,  from  London,"  published  in  the  South  Carolina  Gazette  for  August  22,  1769,  makes 
clear  the  substantial  completeness  of  the  house  at  that  time,  and  the  extent  of  Waite's  connec- 
tion with  it.  This  is  republished,  with  plans  and  many  drawings  and  views,  in  Smith,  "Dwell- 
ing Houses  of  Charleston,"  pp.  93-110.  Other  fine  photographs  may  be  found  especially  in 
E.  A.  Crane  and  E.  E.  Soderholtz,  "Colonial  Architecture  in  South  Carolina  and  Georgia" 
(1898)  (fig.  80). 

Colonel  Robert  Brewton's  House,  Brewton's  Corner.  The  house  is  mentioned  in  a  deed 
ot  1733.     Smith,  "Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston,"  p.  43. 

George  Eveleigh  House,  Meeting  Street.  Eveleigh  purchased  the  land  in  1743,  and  on 
January  12,  1753,  ordered  the  sale  of  "the  dwelling  house  on  White  Point  late  in  my  occupa- 
tion," which  must  meanwhile  have  been  erected  on  it.  Smith,  "Dwelling  Houses  of  Charles- 
ton," p.  66.     Plans,  with  a  sketch  and  a  photograph,  are  there  published. 

Wilson  Glover  House  (Charleston  Club).  The  lot  was  purchased  by  Wilson  Glover  in 
iSoo.     Smith,  "Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston,"  p.  196. 

Ralph  Izard  House,  Broad  Street.  This  is  mentioned  in  the  will  of  Izard,  September  13, 
1757.     Smith,  "Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston,"  p.  249.     Plans  and  views  are  there  given. 

278 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    HOUSES 

M1DDLETON-P1NCK.NEV  House,  George  Street.  Frances  Middleton  only  acquired  in  1796  the 
second  of  the  two  lots  on  which  it  was  built,  but  ?io,ooo  of  its  total  cash  cost  of  $45,000  had 
been  expended  on  it  before  her  marriage  to  Thomas  Pinckney,  October  19,  1797.  Smith, 
"Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston,"  p.  132.  It  is  now  occupied  by  the  Water  Company, 
which  has  removed  or  altered  the  partitions  of  the  lower  story. 

Charles  Pinckney  House,  Colleton  Square.  Estimates,  accounts,  and  specifications  from 
1745  and  1746  are  published  at  length  in  Smith,  "Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston,"  pp.  361- 
371,  where  an  old  photograph  of  the  house,  after  the  bombardment  and  fire  of  1861,  is  repro- 
duced (fig.  66).  The  same  photograph,  with  another,  is  published  by  F.  T.  Miller,  "Photo- 
graphic History  of  the  Civil  War"  (191 1),  vol.  9,  pp.  319,  321. 

Thomas  Radcliffe  House,  George  and  Meeting  Streets.  Thomas  RadclifFe  acquired  the  lots 
in  1800.  He  "died  in  1S06,  leaving  to  his  wife  a  life  interest  in  the  house,  which  he  had 
just  finished  building."  Smith,  "Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston,"  p.  141,  where  a  plan  is 
published.  In  recent  years  the  house  has  been  used  as  the  High  School.  In  1916  the  interior 
woodwork  was  acquired  by  the  Metropolitan  Museum. 

Nathaniel  Russell  House.  The  Charleston  Times  of  September  11,  181 1,  describes  damage 
done  by  a  tornado:  "The  new  and  large  house  of  Nathaniel  Russell  .  .  .  entirely  unroofed. 
.  .  ."  Smith,  "Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston,"  p.  155,  where  a  plan  (fig.  126)  and  views  of 
the  house  are  given  {cf.  fig.  204). 

Colonel  John  Stuart  House,  Tradd  and  Orange  Streets.  Sir  John  Stuart,  son  of  the  builder, 
in  a  memorial  to  the  British  government,  stated  that  his  father  built  the  house  about  1772. 
Smith,  "Dwelling  Houses  of  Charleston,"  p.  240,  where  plans,  views,  and  details  are  given. 

Charlestown,  Massachusetts. — Joseph  Barrell  House.  William  Bentley  wrote  in  his  diary, 
September  19,  1792  (vol.  i,  p.  395):  "Barrell's  house  advanced  to  the  second  story  upon  Lech- 
mere's  point  &  Cobble  Hill."  It  was  designed  by  Bulfinch  and  is  described  and  illustrated  by 
E.  S.  Bulfinch,  "Charles  Bulfinch"  (1896),  pp.  193-195.  The  estate  was  purchased  for  the 
McLean  Asylum  for  the  Insane,  which  was  opened  for  patients  in  1818.  A  drawing  by  Bulfinch 
preserved  at  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology  shows  the  two  wings  erected  for  the 
asylum.  After  the  removal  of  the  asylum  to  Waverly  about  1900  the  house  was  torn  down 
and  rebuilt  in  Wayland,  Massachusetts,  with  some  modifications.  Messrs.  Little  and  Brown, 
architects  for  the  rebuilding,  made  a  plan  of  the  old  house  before  its  destruction,  and  photo- 
graphs of  several  rooms  are  extant  (figs.  192,  194,  and  201).  With  the  aid  of  all  these  evi- 
dences Ogden  Codman  has  prepared  drawings  which  accurately  represent  the  original  form  of 
the  house,  and  which  we  are  privileged  to  reproduce  (figs.  120  and  145). 

Cocu.Mscussuc,  Rhode  Island. — Richard  Smith  House.  This  house,  built  by  Richard  Smith, 
Jr.,  replaced  one  burned  after  the  Great  Swamp  Fight  of  1675.  It  is  described  in  his  inventory, 
1692,  although  there  is  some  doubt  as  to  how  much  of  the  existing  house  belongs  to  the  original 
fabric.     Isham  and  Brown,  "Rhode  Island  Houses,"  pp.  62-64,  ^"d  plate  52. 

Concord,  Michigan. — St.  Clair  Bean  House.  According  to  information  furnished  by  St.  Clair 
Bean,  Jr.,  the  present  owner,  the  house  was  built  for  his  father  in  1857,  by  Houghton  Butler 
and  Son,  and  by  one  Mr.  Gladen.    The  parapet  of  the  west  wing  was  removed  in  1919. 

Deerfield,  Massachusetts. — John  Sheldon  ("Indian")  House.  Sheldon  purchased  lot  no.  12 
in  Deerfield  some  time  after  1687,  and  built  here  "about  1696,"  according  to  G.  Sheldon,  "His- 
tory of  Deerfield,"  vol.  i  (1895),  pp.  277  and  601,  which  states  that  "the  exact  date  ot  pur- 

279 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

chase  or  building  is  not  found."  In  1698,  the  last  year  of  King  William's  War,  he  bargained 
with  the  town  for  about  one-fourth  of  an  acre  out  of  the  training-field,  that  he  might  build  his 
house  within  the  stockade.  lb.,  p.  601.  On  this  evidence,  doubtless,  is  based  the  date  of  1698 
given  for  its  building  on  the  memorial  tablet  which  marks  the  site.  The  house,  as  revealed  by 
contemporary  documents  {Ih.,  p.  304),  survived  the  attack  on  the  town  in  1704  and  stood  until 
1848.  A  view  of  it,  reproduced  by  Sheldon  as  the  frontispiece  of  volume  2,  is  apparently  derived 
from  a  woodcut  in  Barber's  "Historical  Collections"  (1838).  The  door  (fig.  12)  and  brackets 
of  the  overhang  are  preserved  by  the  Pocumtuck  Valley  Memorial  Association.  All  these 
remains  and  views  are  reproduced  conveniently  in  Old-Thne  New  England,  vol.  12  (1922), 
pp.  99-108,  where  there  are  also  detailed  drawings  of  the  door  hardware. 

John  Williams  House.  "January  9,  1706-7.  Att  a  Legall  Town  meeting  in  Deerfield,  It  was 
yn  agreed  and  voted  y'  y=  Towne  would  build  a  house  for  Mr.  Jno.  Williams  in  Derfield  as  big 
as  Ens.  John  Sheldon's  a  back  room  as  big  as  may  be  thought  convenient."  G.  Sheldon, 
"History  of  Deerfield,"  vol.  i  (1895),  P-  j6o.  On  October  17,  "y'  is  nerly  bilt."  The  house 
replaced  one  built  soon  after  1686  and  destroyed  in  the  Indian  attack  of  1704.  The  new  house 
in  its  original  form  is  shown  in  an  old  painting,  after  a  pen  sketch  of  about  1729,  reproduced 
by  M.  Harland,  "Some  Colonial  Homesteads"  (1897),  facing  p.  404.  This  shows  the  building 
with  a  framed  overhang  in  front,  a  clustered  central  chimney,  a  plain  doorway,  and  a  single 
pair  of  casements  to  either  side  of  it.  The  lean-to  appears  in  much  the  same  proportions  as  at 
present.  In  1756  Captain  Elijah  Williams,  according  to  his  books  in  the  hands  of  the  Pocum- 
tuck Valley  Memorial  Association,  rebuilt  the  house,  giving  it  its  present  form.  G.  and  J.  M.  A. 
Sheldon,  "The  Rev.  John  Williams  House"  (1918),  esp.  pp.  10,  29.  On  passing  into  the  hands 
of  the  Deerfield  Academy  in  1875  the  house  was  moved  and  modified  in  some  respects;  in  1916 
and  191 7  it  was  restored.     lb.,  p.  ji- 

Dexter,  Michigan. — Dexter  House  (fig.  142),  "was  built  between  1840  and  '43,"  writes  Mrs. 
Julia  Dexter  Stannard,  daughter  of  Samuel  Dexter,  the  original  owner. 

Dravton  Hall,  Ashley  River,  South  Carolina. — An  advertisement  in  the  South  Carolina 
Gazette,  December  22,  1758,  quoted  by  H.  A.  M.  Smith  in  the  South  Carolina  Hictorical  Maga- 
zine, vol.  20  (1919),  p.  II,  says:  "From  this  House  you  have  the  agreeable  Prospect  of  the 
Honourable  John  Drayton,  Esqr's  Palace  and  Gardens.  .  .  ."  A  photograph  of  it  is  reproduced 
in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  part  10,  plate  39. 

East  Windsor,  Connecticut. — Ebenezer  Grant  House.  Contemporary  building  accounts,  still 
extant,  fix  its  building  in  1757  and  1758.  Isham  and  Brown,  "Early  Connecticut  Houses," 
p.  87,  where  drawings  and  a  full  discussion  are  given. 

Elsing  Green,  King  William  County,  Virginia.  The  house  was  rebuilt  in  1758  by  Carter 
Braxton,  as  his  initials  and  the  date  over  the  west  door  attest.  Lancaster,  "Historic  Virginia 
Homes,"  p.  268.    The  interior  has  been  radically  modified  as  a  result  of  several  fires. 

Fairfield,  or  Carter's  Creek,  Gloucester  County,  Virginia  (fig.  22).  "Upon  one  of  its 
gables  was  in  iron  figures  the  date  1692  and,  also  in  iron,  the  letters  L.  A.  B. — the  initials  of 
Lewis  and  Abigail  Burwell."  See  R.  A.  Lancaster,  "Historic  Virginia  Homes"  (1915),  pp. 
225-230.  "It  consisted  of  a  main  building  with  a  wing  extending  back  at  right  angles  at  each 
end.  One  of  these  wings  was  burned,  or  torn  away,  long  ago,  though  the  foundation  can  still 
be  traced;  the  other  contained  a  very  large  room  known  traditionally  as  the  'ballroom.'"  For 
many  years  before  its  destruction  it  was  in  a  state  of  ruin,  and  it  was  finally  burned  a  few  years 
prior  to  1915. 

280 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    HOUSES 

Germaxtown,  Pennsylvania. — Cliveden  (fig.  ;^2)-  Chief-Justice  Benjamin  Chew  purchased  the 
land  July  17,  1763.  A  measured  plan  and  details  are  published  by  J.  P.  Sims  and  C.  Willing, 
"Old  Philadelphia  Colonial  Details"  (1914),  plates  49-55. 

Johnson  House,  6305  Germantown  Road.  "DirckJansen  .  .  .  began  the  house  in  1765  and 
finished  it  in  1768,  which  is  the  date  on  the  stone  in  the  peak."  Eberlein  and  Lippincott, 
"Colonial  Homes  of  Philadelphia,"  p.  240. 

Daniel  Pastorius  House,  6019  Germantown  Road.  There  is  a  date-stone  with  the  initials  of 
Daniel  and  Sarah  Pastorius  and  the  date,  1748.  Wise  and  Beidleman,  "  Colonial  Architecture," 
p.  1 10. 

Stenton  (figs.  47  and  60).  J.  F.  Watson,  who  was  familiar  with  Logan's  papers,  gives  the  date 
of  its  erection  as  1727  to  1728,  "Annals  of  Philadelphia,"  second  edition  (1844),  vol.  2,  p.  39. 
A  fireback  in  the  house  has  the  inscription,  "I.  L.  1728."  "It  is  certain  that  James  Logan  was 
residing  there  in  1732,  although  it  is  probable  that  the  main  dwelling  was  not  entirely  finished 
until  1734."  "In  deeds  made  prior  to  1730  he  describes  himself  as  'James  Logan  of  Phila- 
delphia,' but  in  1732  he  began  to  style  himself 'James  Logan  of  Stenton.'"  N.  H.  Keyser, 
"History  of  Old  Germantown"  (1907),  pp.  135,  140. 

Upsala.  "One  of  the  copper  rain-conductor-heads  bears  the  date  of  1798,  and  family  records 
show  that  John  Johnson,  Jr.,  moved  into  the  house  in  1800."  Wise  and  Beidleman,  "Colonial 
Architecture,"  p.  149. 

Graeme  Park,  Horsham,  Pennsylvania  (figs.  44,  58,  and  96).  Governor  William  Keith  made  the 
contract  for  erecting  the  house,  December  12,  1721,  with  John  Kirk,  mason.  T.  A.  Glenn, 
"Some  Colonial  Mansions"  (1899),  p.  374.  An  old  weather-vane  formerly  on  the  building  has 
the  inscription:  "W.  K.  1722."  A  fireback  with  the  date  1728  is  reproduced  by  Eberlein  and 
Lippincott,  "  Colonial  Homes  of  Philadelphia,"  facing  p.  300.  Measured  drawings  of  the  house 
are  published  by  Donald  Millar,  "Some  Colonial  and  Georgian  Houses,"  plates  35-40. 

Grass  Lake,  Michigan. — Smith  House  (fig.  188).  C.  W.  Smith,  the  present  owner,  writes  that 
the  house  was  built  in  1840  by  his  father,  Sydney  Smith,  who  came  to  Michigan  in  1839;  that 
Silas  Winchester  was  head  carpenter  and  Levi  Babbitt  mason. 

Guilford,  Connecticut. — Henry  Whitfield  House.  There  is  sufficient  evidence  to  establish 
the  identity  of  the  house  with  that  built  by  Reverend  Henry  Whitfield,  who  came  to  Guilford 
at  its  foundation  in  1639  and  died  in  1657.  W.  G.  Andrews,  in  "Historical  Papers  relating  to 
the  Henrv  Whitfield  House"  (191 1).  The  contention  that  the  house  must  have  been  built  im- 
mediately, 1639  to  1640,  is  not  substantiated.  Whitfield's  will,  published  in  the  N^ew  England 
Historical  and  Genealogical  Register,  vol.  51  (1897),  p.  417,  merely  leaves  all  to  his  wife;  and  the 
first  documentary  mention  is  in  a  deed  of  1659,  "when  Whitfield's  son  Nathaniel  sold  what  had 
been  his  father's  New  England  residence  .  .  .  proving  identity  of  that  with  the  'old  stone 
house'  of  Guilford."  x'^ndrews,  op.  cit.,  p.  7.  The  house  has  undergone  many  transformations. 
Those  down  to  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  century  are  detailed  by  Isham  and  Brown,  "Early 
Connecticut  Houses"  (1900),  pp.  1 12-124,  where  plans  at  different  periods  are  reproduced. 
In  1903  the  house  was  transformed  to  contain  the  State  Historical  Museum,  the  front  part 
being  treated  as  a  single  hall  running  through  two  stories.  The  finding  of  an  old  fireplace 
opening  at  the  second  story  level  leaves  the  authenticity  of  this  treatment  in  doubt.  The 
wainscoting  of  the  lower  walls  was  supplied  a  priori.  The  fireplace  at  the  north  end,  however, 
is  an  original  feature.  A  plan  and  section  of  it  may  be  found  with  Andrews's  paper,  after 
p.  23,  where  there  are  also  photographs  of  the  house  in  its  present  condition. 

281 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

GuNSTON  Hall,  Fairfax  County,  Virginia  (fig.  46).  A  documentary  account  of  its  building  is 
given  by  K.  M.  Rowland,  "George  Mason"  (1892),  p.  57.  After  suffering  some  defacements, 
the  house  has  recently  been  restored  by  Glenn  Brown.  An  elevation,  a  plan,  and  photographs 
are  reproduced  in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  vol.  2,  p.  50;  others,  since  the  restoration,  are  in 
Coffin  and  Holden,  "Brick  Colonial  Architecture  in  Maryland  and  Virginia,"  p.  14,  plates 
38-40. 

Hackensack,  New  Jersey. — Zabriskie  (Board)  House,  Paramus  Road.  The  lintel  of  one  of 
the  cellar  windows,  with  the  inscription  "A.  C.  Z.  1790,"  is  reproduced  by  J.  T.  Boyd,  "Some 
Early  Dutch  Houses  of  New  Jersey,"  Architectural  Record,  vol.  36  (1914),  p.  44.  Other  views 
are  shown  on  pp.  37  and  151. 

The  Hermitage,  Near  Nashville,  Tennessee.  In  the  Jackson  Papers,  Division  of  Manuscripts, 
Library  of  Congress,  are  a  number  of  documents  bearing  on  the  rebuilding  of  the  house.  Re- 
ceipts by  Joseph  Rieff  and  William  C.  Hume  for  carpenter's  work  range  from  July,  1835,  to 
June,  1836.  Rieff's  proposal  for  doing  the  carpenter's  work,  vol.  97,  no.  20350,  speaks  of  "re- 
building the  Hermitage  as  it  was  before  it  burned  down,"  with  alterations  the  chief  of  which 
is  "  the  roof  to  be  maid  of  a  lower  pitch  then  it  was  before."  "Porches  back  and  front  as  before 
.  .  .  East  wing  to  be  finished  as  before." 

Homewood,  Baltimore  County,  Maryland.  In  a  letter  in  the  possession  of  Johns  Hopkins 
University,  kindly  communicated  by  Professor  John  H.  Latane,  former  Governor  John  Lee 
Carroll,  ot  Maryland,  writes  from  Doughoragan  Manor  under  date  of  October  7,  1907:  "About 
the  year  1798  the  construction  ot  the  House  was  begun  by  Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  as  a 
residence  for  his  son  'Charles  fourth  of  Homewood,'  to  be  conveyed  to  him  after  his  marriage 
in  1800.  The  marriage  took  place  in  that  year  and  my  father  was  born  there  in  July,  1801." 
Since  the  acquisition  of  Homewood  by  the  Johns  Hopkins  University,  the  house  has  been  re- 
stored, but  with  little  modification  of  the  original  work.  The  fullest  publication  of  the  house, 
with  a  plan,  measured  drawings,  and  photographs,  is  in  the  Architectural  Record,  vol.  41  (1917), 
PP-  435-447  and  525-535. 

Ipswich,  AL^ssachusetts. — John  Whipple  House  (fig.  4).  The  fullest  publication  of  the  docu- 
ments concerning  it  is  in  the  monograph  by  Thomas  F.  Waters,  which  constitutes  no.  20  in  the 
Publications  of  the  Ipswich  Historical  Society  (191 5).  They  make  it  clear  that  the  main  house 
in  its  full  extent  was  standing  at  the  death  of  Captain  John  Whipple  in  1682.  As  structural 
examination  discloses  that  the  eastern  and  western  ends  were  built  at  different  periods,  the  lat- 
ter being  less  elaborate  and  expensive,  the  conclusion  is  that  it  was  the  house  in  the  town  men- 
tioned in  the  inventory  of  Elder  John  Whipple,  who  died  in  1669.  Earlier  documents  show 
that  John  Fawn  built  a  house  on  the  lot  before  1638.  Regarding  the  identity  of  this  house 
with  the  western  part  of  the  Whipple  house,  Mr.  Waters  grew  more  sanguine  as  time  went  on. 
In  no.  6  of  the  Society  Publications  (1898)  he  wrote,  pp.  35-36:  "I  cannot  believe  that  even 
the  oldest  part  of  this  venerable  house  could  have  been  in  existence  then  (1638)."  In  1901, 
when  reprinting  this  as  no.  10,  he  modified  this  statement  to  read,  p.  34:  "It  is  not  beyond  the 
bounds  of  possibility  that  this  western  end  of  the  old  mansion  may  have  been  erected  by  Mr. 
Fawne."  In  "Ipswich  in  the  Massachusetts  Bay  Colony"  (1905),  p.  325,  he  wrote:  "The 
house  built  by  John  Fawn  is  undoubtedly  the  western  part  of  the  House  of  the  Historical 
Society,"  and  this  remained  his  final  opinion.  During  all  this  time  he  was  considering  the  same 
evidence,  but  gradually  gave  greater  weight  to  analogy  with  Deputy  Governor  Symonds's  de- 
scription of  his  intended  house  in  1638,  as  indicating  that  such  a  house  could  have  been  built 
at  that  time.     Fawn,  however,  was  an  obscure  private  citizen  whose  dwelling,  as  Waters  him- 

282 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    HOUSES 

self  original!)-  interred,  would  have  been  far  inferior  to  that  of  Symonds.  The  later  history  of 
the  house  is  traced  in  the  monograph  referred  to  above,  especially  pp.  32  and  43.  Photographs 
of  the  interior  are  there  given. 

J.\MESTO\vN-,  Virginia. — "Country  House"  and  Philip  Ludwell  Houses.  Documents  which 
establish  that  these  were  built  between  1662  and  1666  are  published  by  their  discov-erer,  S.  H. 
Yonge,  "James  Towne"  (1907),  pp.  85,  95.  They  were  burned  in  1676,  partially  rebuilt  1685- 
1686,  excavated  1903  (fig.  17). 

LoNGMEADOw,  MASSACHUSETTS. — Samuel  Colton  House.  " To  Mrs.  George  E.  Brewer  of  Long- 
meadow  we  owe  the  following  information,  based  on  contemporary  documents:  Samuel  Colton 
'built  the  finest  mansion  in  town,  John  Steele  being  the  builder.  The  entries  in  his  ledger  dur- 
ing its  construction  begin  in  1753  .  .  .  and  in  June,  1754,  five  days'  work  was  done  on  the  fore 
door.  The  last  reference  is  not  until  1755  and  reads:  "Stepstones  for  my  fore  door  £29.'"" 
E.  J.  Hipkiss  in  (Boston)  Museum  oj  Fine  Arts  Bulletin^  vol.  19  (1921),  p.  57. 
Some  drawings  of  this  doorway  appear  in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  vol.  2,  p.  63. 

Lower  Yonrers.     See  New  York.  City. 

Marblehead,  Massachusetts. — Jeremiah  Lee  House  (figs.  64,  89,  90,  and  99).  The  date  of 
1768  on  the  house  is  confirmed  by  Thomas  Amory  Lee,  "The  Lee  Family,"  Historical  Collections 
of  the  Essex  Institute,  vol.  42  (191 6),  p.  331.  Cf.  also  the  pamphlet  issued  by  its  present  owner, 
the  Marblehead  Historical  Society. 

Medford,  ALissACHUSETTS. — Peter  Tufts  House,  long  erroneously  known  as  the  "Cradock 
house"  (fig.  25).  The  documents  which  establish  the  ciate  anci  original  ownership  of  this 
house  are  given  and  discussed  by  John  H.  Hooper  in  the  Medford  Historical  Register,  vol.  7 
(1904),  pp.  50-56.  The  house  has  been  much  modified  in  fairly  recent  years.  Drawings  made 
before  these  modifications  appeared  in  the  American  Architect  and  Building  News,  vol.  6  (1881), 
no.  296;  and  others  with  a  valuable  text  in  Carpentry  and  Building,  vol.  6  (18S4),  pp.  I45-146. 

Usher  (Royall)  House  (fig.  61).  In  the  building  of  this  house  there  were  no  less  than  four 
periods,  as  has  been  pointed  out  by  J.  H.  Hooper,  Medford  Historical  Register,  vol.  3  (1900), 
pp.  133-153,  where  the  legal  documents  bearing  on  the  matter  are  cited,  and  the  drawings  are 
published  which  we  reproduce  as  figure  19.  Hooper  supposes  that  the  part  A  was  built  "very 
likely  during  the  ownership  of  the  Winthrops,"  /.  e.,  prior  to  1677;  but  as  for  many  years  before 
this  time  the  estate  was  occupied  by  tenants,  it  seems  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  it  was 
built  by  Colonel  Charles  Lidgett,  who  owned  it  from  1677  to  about  1692,  and  apparently  occu- 
pied it  until  1689,  or  by  Lieutenant-Governor  John  Usher,  who  succeeded  to  its  ownership  and 
occupied  it  from  1697  to  his  death  in  1726.  All  we  know  of  this  certainly  is  that  the  house,  as 
"the  brick  house  in  which  the  said  John  Usher  now  dwells,"  is  mentioned  in  a  mortgage  deed 
of  1707.  Hooper,  op.  cit.,  p.  138,  and  Wyman,  "Genealogies  and  Estates  of  Charlestown," 
1879,  vol.  2,  p.  980.  The  part  B,  as  Hooper  suggests,  may  have  been  added  during  the  occu- 
pancy of  the  Ushers,  or  after  the  purchase  of  the  place  in  February,  1732-3,  by  Isaac  Royall, 
who  seems  to  have  raised  and  modified  the  east  front  prior  to  taking  up  his  residence  in  the 
house,  1737.  The  part  D,  which  Hooper  proves  by  structural  analysis  to  be  not  contemporary 
with  C,  would  then  have  been  added  some  time  between  the  death  of  Royall  in  1738  and  his 
son's  flight  to  England  in  1775.  This  son  Isaac,  born  in  1719,  married  in  1738;  his  mother  died 
in  1747.  New  England  Historical  and  Genealogical  Register,  vol.  39  (1885),  pp.  356-357.  These 
dates  suggest  that  the  final  remodelling  may  have  taken  place  after  1747,  and  it  may  well  have 

283 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

been  completed  by  1750,  when  Captain  Francis  Goelet  described  it  as  "one  of  the  grandest  in 
the  colonies."  lb.,  vol.  24  (1870),  p.  58.  This  coincides  well  with  the  date  tor  the  interior  fin- 
ish resulting  from  our  discussion  in  the  text.  Measured  details  of  the  house  are  published  in 
"The  Georgian  Period,"  plates  3-6.  These  make  clear  that  the  present  east  door  and  some  of 
the  present  sash  are  restorations  in  the  old  frames. 

MiDDLETowx,  Connecticut. — Russel  House,  High  Street.  An  engraving  of  this  house  faces 
page  482  of  volume  2  in  J.  H.  Hinton,  "History  and  Topography  of  the  United  States"  (1832). 
George  Dudley  Seymour,  in  his  notice  of  David  Hoadley  in  the  catalogue  of  the  Third 
Annual  Exhibition  of  the  Architectural  Club  of  New  Haven  (1922),  says:  "The  Russell  man- 
sion on  High  Street,  Middletown,  was,  as  I  judge,  Hoadley's  last  important  design.  This 
house,  completed  in  1828,  has  happily  escaped  alterations  and  is  to-day  perhaps  the  most 
notable  piece  of  domestic  architecture  in  its  locality." 

Mill  Grove,  Lower  Providence  Township,  Pennsylvania.  The  house,  built  by  James  Mor- 
gan, has  a  date-stone  in  the  gable  with  the  date  1762.  Eberlein  and  Lippincott,  "Colonial 
Homes  of  Philadelphia,"  p.  2cx3. 

MoNTiCELLO,  Albemarle  County,  Virginia  (figs.  52,  147,  202,  203,  and  215).  For  discussion  of 
this  and  other  houses  designed  by  Jefferson  see  the  writer's  work,  "Thomas  Jefl-erson,  Archi- 
tect" (1 91 6). 

Montpellier,  Orange  County,  Virginia  (fig.  186).  The  central  portion  of  the  house  seems  to 
have  been  built  by  the  father  of  James  Madison;  the  portico  was  added  in  1793;  the  wings 
later,  originally  one  story  in  height.  CJ .  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  p.  57  and 
note.     In  recent  years  the  wings  have  been  raised  to  the  height  ot  the  main  house. 

Mount  Airy,  Richmond  County,  Virginia  (figs.  35,  50,  53).  The  date  of  1758  for  its  erection 
is  given  in  the  volume  "In  Memoriam:  Benjamin  Ogle  Tayloe"  (1872),  compiled  by  one  who 
had  known  the  family  papers  before  their  destruction  in  the  fire  of  1844.  This  gutted  the  in- 
terior and  destroyed  the  old  cornice,  but  the  original  stonework  is  still  intact.  A  plan  and  other 
measured  drawings  are  given,  with  photographs,  by  Coffin  and  Holden,  "Brick  Colonial  Archi- 
tecture of  Maryland  and  Virginia,"  page  18,  and  plates  60-64.  A  more  correct  plan  of  the 
house,  with  the  gardens,  is  published  by  F.  C.  Baldwin,  with  other  photographs,  in  the  Journal 
of  the  American  Institute  oj Architects,  vol.  4  (1916),  pp.  448-454. 

Mount  Vernon,  Fairfax  County,  Virginia  (fig.  53).  The  fullest  account  of  its  vicissitudes  is 
given  by  Paul  Wilstach:  "Mount  Vernon"  (1916),  supplemented  for  the  earlier  period  by 
Warren  D.  Brush  in  The  House  Beautiful,  vol.  51  (1922),  pp.  130  fF.  Brush  establishes  that 
the  central  portion,  originally  of  one  story  and  a  half,  was  raised  to  two  stories  1758-9. 
Wilstach  makes  clear  that  the  addition  which  forms  the  south  end  of  the  house  was  erected 
between  October,  1773,  and  the  end  of  1775  (pp.  126-127),  and  that  the  north  end,  with  the 
finishing  of  the  entrance  front,  falls  in  the  years  1776  to  1778  (p.  141).  He  would  seem,  how- 
ever, to  be  in  error  in  supposing  (p.  141)  that  the  portico  on  the  river  front  was  built  at  this 
time.  The  entries  in  Washington's  diary  for  1786:  "May  22,  Began  to  take  up  the  pavement 
of  the  piazza,"  and  "May  23,  Began  to  lay  the  flags  of  my  piazza,"  do  not  imply  that  the 
portico  in  its  present  form  had  been  built  for  some  time,  or  even  that  there  had  previously 
been  a  covered  portico  at  all.  On  the  contrary,  it  would  seem  that  the  new  flags  were  laid 
before  the  erection  of  the  columns.  If  so  it  would  closely  limit  the  date  of  raising  the  portico, 
for  this  appears  on  the  "Sketch  Plan  of  Mt.  Vernon  by  Samuel  Vaughan,  Aug.  1787,"  pre- 
served at  the  house. 

284 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    HOUSES 

The  Mulberry  ("Mulberry  Castle"),  Cooper  River,  South  Carolina  (fig.  43).  The  major 
part  of  the  plantation  was  conveyed  to  Thomas  Broughton,  January  20,  1708.  On  May  17, 
171 2,  the  three  hundred  acres  on  which  the  house  stands  were  brought  into  the  plantation  by 
exchange,  Broughton  having  lately  set  up  some  erections  and  buildings  on  it,  mistakenly  sup- 
posing it  to  be  included  in  his  property.  See  H.  A.  M.  Smith,  "The  Fairlawn  Barony,"  in 
South  Carolina  Historical  Magazine,  vol.  11  (1910),  pp.  196-197.  By  his  will,  dated  July  22, 
1725,  he  left  to  his  wife  "the  Capitoll  Messuage  Tenement  Mansion  or  Dwelling  House  called 
the  Mulberry."  See  D.  E.  Huger  Smith,  "The  Broughton  Letters,"  ib.,  vol.  15  (1914),  p.  171. 
An  old  weather-vane  on  the  house  bears  the  date  1714,  but  it  has  not  proved  feasible  to  exam- 
ine it  to  determine  at  what  period  it  was  placed  there  and  to  what  degree  reliance  may  be 
placed  on  it.  A  plan,  elevations,  and  other  drawings  appear  in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  part  10, 
plate  38. 

Newberx,  North  Carolina. — Tryon's  Palace.  The  construction  of  the  building  was  provided 
for  by  Chapter  II  of  the  Laws  of  1766.  Governor  Tryon  wrote  to  the  Earl  of  Shelburne, 
January  31,  1767:  "I  have  emplowed  Mr.  Hawks,  who  came  with  me  out  of  England  to  super- 
intend this  work  in  all  its  branches.  He  was  in  the  service  of  Mr.  Leadbeater.  Mr.  Hawks 
has  contracted  to  finish  the  whole  in  three  years  from  the  laying  of  the  first  brick  which  I  guess 
will  be  in  May  next."  Colonial  Records  of  North  Carolina,  vol.  7  (1890),  p.  431.  Complete 
estimates  signed  by  John  Hawks  are  published  there,  pp.  542-543.  On  January  12,  1769, 
Tryon  writes  that  it  is  covered  and  roofed,  giving  also  other  information.  B.  J.  Lossing,  "Pic- 
torial Field  Book  of  the  Revolution,"  vol.  2  (1852),  p.  570,  publishes  a  view  of  the  entrance 
front,  saying:  "This  picture  of  the  palace  I  made  from  the  original  drawings  of  the  plan  and 
elevation,  by  John  Hawks,  Esq.,  the  architect.  These  drawings,  with  others  of  minor  details, 
such  as  sections  of  the  drawing  room,  chimney-breasts  for  the  council-chamber  and  dining- 
hall,  sewers,  &c.,  are  in  the  present  possession  of  a  grandson  of  the  architect,  the  Reverend 
Francis  L.  Hawks,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  rector  of  Calvary  Church,  in  the  City  of  New  Yorl;."  Loss- 
ing gives  additional  details,  descriptions,  etc.,  and  states  the  house  was  destroyed  by  fire  about 
fifty  years  previously,  leaving  only  the  two  outbuildings.  When  he  states  that  "the  rear  of 
the  building  was  finished  in  the  style  of  the  mansion  house  in  London,"  the  implication  is  that 
it  had  a  pedimented  frontispiece  above  a  basement. 

Newbury,  Massachusetts. — (Spencer)  Pierce  House.  J.  J.  Currier,  in  his  "Ould  Newbury" 
(1896),  pp.  25-41,  has  an  exhaustive  study  of  the  many  documents  relating  to  this  property, 
with  its  important  early  stone  and  brick  house,  but  wisely  concludes,  regarding  the  date  of  its 
building,  that  they  do  "not  furnish  sufficient  evidence  to  determine  the  question  beyond  a 
reasonable  doubt."  There  is  no  doubt  that  there  was  "housing"  on  the  land  in  the  time  of 
John  Spencer,  Jr.,  who  sold  the  farm  in  1651,  and  housing  is  mentioned  also  in  the  will  of 
Daniel  Pierce,  who  died  in  1677,  but  in  neither  case  can  we  affirm  that  it  was  identical  with 
the  stone  house  now  standing.  The  same  must  be  said  of  the  house  mentioned  by  Samuel  Sewall 
in  his  "Commonplace  Book,"  Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  series  5,  vol.  6, 
p.  17:  "May  7,  1681,  there  was  a  Hurrican  at  Newbury  which  .  .  .  uncover'd  Capt.  Pierce's 
new  house  at  the  Gper  end  of  Chandler's  Lane,  blew  down  the  Chimneys,"  quoted  by  Currier, 
"History  of  Newbury"  (1902),  p.  671,  and  the  first  certain  reference  to  the  house  is  in  the  will 
of  this  Daniel  Pierce,  dated  August  12,  1701,  which  gives  to  his  wife,  among  other  things,  "the 
Parlor  in  the  Stone  house." 

Newburyport,  Massachusetts. — Jonathan  Mulliken  (Cutler-Bartlett)  House.  "In  1782, 
this  house,  then  in  process  of  construction,  was  bought  from  the  estate  of  Jonathan  Mulliken 
by  John  Babson  and  completed  by  him."  Albert  Hale,  "Old  Newburyport  Houses"  (1912), 
p.  27.     It  was  restored  in  1915. 

28-; 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Enoch  Thurston  (Lunt-Shepard)  House,  79  High  Street.  "This  house  was  in  process  of 
construction  by  Enoch  Thurston  at  the  time  of  his  death,  in  1805,  and  was  completed  by 
Edward  St.  Loe  Livermore."     Albert  Hale,  "Old  Newburyport  Houses"  (1912),  p.  50. 

Benaiah  Titcomb  House.  Benaiah  Titcomb  purchased  the  land  in  1695.  See  J.  J.  Currier, 
"History  of  Newburyport"  (1909),  vol.  2,  p.  54.  The  house  is  now  re-erected,  considerably 
modified,  in  the  town  of  Essex.  See  Bulletin  oj  the  Society  Jor  the  Preservation  of  Neiv  England 
Antiquities,  no.  18  (191 8),  pp.  29-30. 

Newcastle,  Delaware. — Kensey  Johns  House,  2  Orange  Street.  The  bills  for  this  house  are 
preserved,  placing  the  date  of  erection  in  1790.  .\  letter  of  Peter  Justis,  which  suggests  his 
agency  in  its  design,  is  published  by  H.  C.  Wise  and  H.  F.  Beidleman,  "Colonial  Architecture" 

(19I3),  p.   I2J. 

George  Read  II  House,  on  the  Strand.  The  names  of  the  contractors,  with  the  dates  of 
building,  1791  to  1801,  are  given  from  the  original  papers  in  Wise  and  Beidleman,  "Colonial 
Architecture,"  p.  129,  together  with  several  photographs. 

New  Haven,  Connecticut. — Governor  E.a.ton  House.  The  evidence  as  to  this  house  is  given 
in  full  by  Isham  and  Brown,  "Early  Connecticut  Houses,"  pp.  97-1 11.  A  revaluation  and 
reinterpretation  of  this  evidence,  however,  leads  us  to  different  conclusions.  The  sole  basis  for 
the  E  form  shown  in  the  restoration  by  these  writers  is  the  statement  of  E.  R.  Lambert,  "His- 
tory of  the  Colony  of  New  Haven"  (1838),  p.  52,  with  the  accompanying  cut.  The  house,  how- 
ever, was  destroyed  before  1730,  and  Lambert's  account  in  other  respects  is  not  such  as  to 
inspire  confidence  in  its  accuracy.  The  inventory  taken  "in  the  twelfth  moneth:  1657,"  pub- 
lished in  full  by  Isham  and  Brown,  ib.,  pp.  287-296,  requires  much  forcing  to  make  it  fit  the 
assumption  of  an  E  plan.  The  pantry  or  buttery  shown  by  them  is  an  addition  to  the  accom- 
modations listed  in  the  inventory.  The  counting-house,  which  they  incorporate  as  a  room  of 
the  mansion,  is  mentioned  in  such  a  connection — after  the  garret  and  before  the  brew-house — 
and  with  such  contents — a  grindstone,  a  wheelbarrow,  and  228  pounds  of  old  iron — that  it 
must  almost  certainly  have  been  an  outbuilding.  Taking  these  away,  it  is  possible  to  account 
for  the  eight  rooms  surely  forming  part  of  the  house  as  parts  of  an  ordinary  narrow  rectangular 
house  with  additions  at  the  ends  and  rear.  Messrs.  Isham  and  Brown  rightly  conclude  that 
Lambert  and  Stiles  are  fantastic  in  their  report  of  twentv-one  or  nineteen  fireplaces,  but  in 
invoking  the  mention  of  ten  sets  of  fire-irons  in  the  inventory  to  justify  their  own  assumption 
of  ten  fireplaces  they  count  separately  the  "andirons,"  "small  andirons,"  and  "doggs,"  which 
are  in  realitv  supplementary,  and  are  grouped  in  four  rooms  only,  so  that  only  a  single  chim- 
nev  is  absolutely  needed  to  account  for  them.  The  discrepancy  between  Lambert  and  the 
house  shown  on  a  map  of  1724  may  thus  be  explained  as  due  to  the  imaginary  character  of 
Lambert's  view. 

James  Hillhouse,  Jr.,  House  (Sachem's  Wood).  This  is  listed  in  William  Dunlap's  "History 
of  the  Arts  of  Design  in  the  United  States"  (1833),  as  one  of  the  works  done  by  Ithiel  Town 
and  Alexander  Jackson  Davis,  since  the  formation  of  their  partnership  in  1829  (191 8  edition, 
pp.  212-213).  It  is  still  standing,  somewhat  remodelled  indecent  years,  but  with  the  facade 
little  changed. 

A.  N.  Skinner  House,  46  Hillhouse  Avenue.  This  is  also  mentioned  by  Dunlap,  ".-^rts  of 
Design"  (1918  edition),  vol.  3,  p.  213,  as  one  of  the  works  of  Town  and  Davis  between  1829 
and  the  date  of  the  work,  1833.  It  is  still  preserved,  slight  modifications  by  the  present  owner, 
Mrs.  Rutherford  Trowbridge,  not  having  affected  the  front. 

286 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    HOUSES 

Newport,  Rhode  Island. — Daniel  Ayrault  House,  Thames  and  Anne  Streets.  The  con- 
tract between  Ayrault  and  "Richard  Monday  and  Benjamin  Wyatt  both  of  Newport  .  .  . 
House  Carpenters,"  dated  1739,  is  published  by  George  C.  Mason  in  the  American  Architect, 
vol.  10  (1880),  pp.  83-84,  together  with  other  estimates  and  records  of  payments  running  from 
May,  1739,  to  April,  1741.  The  original  plan,  with  legends  in  a  handwriting  not  Wyatt's,  and 
thus  presumably  Monday's,  is  preserved  by  Mr.  Mason,  and  published  here  by  his  kind  per- 
mission (fig.  45).  A  photograph  of  the  doorway  is  published  by  Corner  and  Soderholtz,  "Colo- 
nial Architecture  in  New  England,"  plate  4;  and  one  of  the  whole  house  is  among  those  lent  to 
the  Metropolitan  Museum  by  Ogden  Codman. 

NiNVON  Challoner  House,  long  destroyed.  The  original  drawing  by  Benjamin  Wyatt  (fig.  32), 
now  in  the  possession  of  George  C.  Mason,  bears  the  date,  March  13,  1735. 

New  York  City. — Colonnade  Row  (La  Grange  Terrace),  Lafayette  Place.  The  Ladies'  Com- 
panion of  November,  1836,  speaks  of  the  block  as  recently  completed.  Photographs  and 
measured  drawings  by  C.  ^L  Price  were  published  in  the  American  Architect,  vol.  99  (191 1), 
pp.  245-250.  One-half  the  row  was  pulled  down  about  1900,  the  other  was  remodelled  in 
1917,  but  leaving  the  exterior  intact. 

Dvckman  House,  Broadway  and  204th  Street  (fig.  148).  In  the  detailed  and  circumstantial 
history  of  the  Dyckman  family  in  the  official  guide-book,  "The  Dyckman  House"  (1916),  by 
Bashford  Dean  and  Alexander  M.  ^Yelch,  the  statement  is  made  (p.  23)  that  the  house  was 
rebuilt  immediately  after  the  return  of  William  Dyckman  at  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary 
War,  about  1783,  and  that  he  died  here  in  1787. 

Government  House,  Lower  Broadway,  erected  as  a  house  for  the  President  ot  the  L'nited 
States,  when  it  was  hoped  the  capital  would  remain  in  New  York.  Designs  were  invited  by 
competition  and  a  selection  had  been  made  prior  to  April  26,  1790,  according  to  I.  N.  P.  Stokes, 
"The  Iconography  of  Manhattan  Island,"  vol.  i  (1917),  p.  418.  Three  old  views  are  reproduced 
there  as  plates  ^S-:  ^3i  ^"^  ^6.  Several  studies  for  the  building  by  John  McComb  are  pre- 
served at  the  New  York  Historical  Society,  and  these  seem  to  have  had  an  influence  on  the 
executed  design,  although  the  New  York  Magazine  for  1795,  which  printed  the  earliest  engrav- 
ing of  the  building,  says  its  "stile  .  .  .  reflects  much  credit  on  the  professional  abilities  of 
those  who  had  the  direction  of  it,  Messrs.  Robinson,  Moore,  and  Smith"  (p.  i).  After  being 
used  as  a  residence  for  the  governors  of  New  York,  as  a  Custom  House,  and  for  other  purposes, 
it  was  torn  down  in  1818. 

The  Grange,  i42d  Street  and  Tenth  Avenue.  A.  M.  Hamilton,  in  his  "Life  of  Alexander 
Hamilton,"  pp.  336-356,  prints  a  number  of  documents  regarding  the  building  of  this  house, 
which  was  designed  by  John  McComb,  and  built  largely  in  1801.  Other  bills,  etc.,  regarding 
it  are  among  the  Hamilton  Papers,  Division  of  Manuscripts,  Library  of  Congress.  The  house, 
now  moved  so  that  it  adjoins  St.  Luke's  Episcopal  Church,  has  been  shorn  of  its  side  verandas. 
A  photograph  taken  about  1864  is  reproduced  in  A.  M.  Hamilton's  "Life,"  facing  p.  340. 

Roger  Morris  (Jumel)  House  (fig.  74).  The  documents  bearing  on  its  building  are  tuUy  set 
forth  by  Rawson  W.  Haddon  in  the  Architectural  Record,  vol.  42  (1917),  pp.  47-62,  126-139, 
where  the  date  is  established  as  1765.  In  view  of  the  history  of  the  house  from  the  outbreak 
of  the  Revolution,  the  long  description  of  1791,  published  there,  p.  61,  must  apply  equally  to 
its  condition  before  1775.  A  full  series  of  measured  drawings  with  this  article  may  be  com- 
pared with  an  equally  elaborate  set  by  Donald  Millar,  "Some  Colonial  and  Georgian  Houses," 
vol.  2,  plates  45-51. 

287 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Van  Cortlandt  House.  "The  declaration  'Whereas,  I  am  about  finishung  a  large  stone  dwell- 
ing house  on  the  plantation  in  which  I  now  live,'  in  Jacobus  Van  Cortlandt's  will,  dated  1749, 
confirms  beyond  any  doubt  the  figures  '  1748'  on  the  date  stone  of  the  ^'an  Cortlandt  Mansion 
in  Van  Cortlandt  Park,  New  York  City."  E.  H.  Hall,  "Philipse  Manor  Hall"  (1912),  p.  233. 
Jacobus,  above,  is  apparently  an  error  for  Frederick.  The  will  is  dated  October  2.  Measured 
drawings  of  the  house  are  published  by  Donald  Millar,  "Some  Colonial  and  Georgian  Houses," 
plates  26-34. 

Northampton,  Massachusetts. — Joseph  Bowers  House.  An  engraving  of  this  house  faces 
page  47<;  of  volume  2  in  J.  H.  Hinton,  "History  and  Topography  of  the  United  States"  (1832). 

Odessa,  Delaware. — Corbit  House.  The  accounts  of  its  building,  extending  from  1772  to  1774, 
are  summarized  by  Wise  and  Beidleman,  "Colonial  Architecture,"  p.  130,  where  exterior  and 
interior  photographs  are  given. 

Philadelphia.     See  also  Germantown. 

John  Bartram  House.  "In  September,  1728,  he  bought  at  sheriff's  sale  a  piece  of  ground.  .  .  . 
Upon  a  stone  built  in  the  walls  is  this  inscription:  John  and  Ann  Bartram,  1731."  T.  West- 
cott,  "Historic  Mansions  of  Philadelphia,"  p.  182.  Over  the  cut-stone  architrave  of  the  study 
window  is  the  inscription: 

IT    IS    GOD    ALONE    ALMYTY    LORD 
the    HOLV    one    BV    ME    ADORED 

JOHN    BARTRAM    I77O 

William  Bingham  House.  The  earliest  reference  to  the  house  seems  to  be  one  in  Peter 
Markoe's  poem,  "The  Times,"  published  in  1788,  and  reprinted  by  Westcott,  "Historic  Man- 
sions of  Philadelphia,"  p.  338.  Bulfinch  dined  there  in  April,  1789,  according  to  a  letter  pub- 
lished by  E.  S.  Bulfinch,  "Charles  Bulfinch,"  p.  75.  Griswold's  "Republican  Court"  (1856), 
pp.  259-260,  262,  gives  the  fullest  description,  supplemented  by  others  in  Westcott.  An  en- 
graving of  the  house  was  published  by  W'illiam  Birch  in  1799  (fig.  170). 

BuRD  House,  Chestnut  Street,  corner  of  Ninth  Street.  Latrobe,  in  listing  his  work  in  a 
letter  of  January  12,  1816,  in  possession  of  Ferdinand  C.  Latrobe,  mentions  as  from  1801  or 
1802  "Mr.  Burd's  building."  Several  photographs  of  this  house,  long  demolished,  are  pre- 
served at  the  Ridgway  Library,  in  the  scrap-book,  "Miscellaneous  Views"  (vol.  6),  pp.  27 
(fig.  167),  49,  55,  187,  and  211. 

Lansdowne,  Fairmount  Park.  The  Honorable  John  Penn  bought  the  land  in  1773;  "  the  house 
must  have  been  finished  before  1777,  because  it  appears  on  Faden's  map  of  that  year."  West- 
cott, "Historic  Mansions  of  Philadelphia,"  p.  334,  where  there  is  a  woodcut  of  the  exterior. 
It  was  burned  July  4,  1854,  and  the  walls  were  pulled  down  after  1866. 

Letitia  House.     See  William  Penn  House. 

Markoe  House,  293  Chestnut  Street.  Latrobe's  original  "Sketch  of  a  design  for  the  house 
of  John  Markoe,  Esq.,"  dated  "Columbia,  Jan.  14,  1808,"  exists  in  one  of  his  sketch-books, 
preserved  by  Ferdinand  C.  Latrobe  (fig.  113).  After  John  Markoe's  death  in  1835,  ^^^  height 
was  increased  by  additional  stories;  and  in  1880  the  house  was  demolished.  Photographs  and 
an  early  view  are  preserved  by  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania. 

Robert  Morris  House,  Chestnut  Street.  The  data  concerning  its  building  are  given  by 
Westcott,  "Historic  Mansions  of  Philadelphia,"  p.  363:  "The  first  entry  on  account  of  this 
building  is  dated  March  9,  1793,  and  records  a  survey  of  the  ground.    The  last  charge  .  .  . 

288 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    HOUSES 

is  made  July  9,  1801."  The  house  and  land  had  meanwhile,  on  December  1 1,  1797,  been  sold  to 
satisfy  Morris's  creditors.  Birch's  engraving  of  the  unfinished  house  (fig.  128)  is  well  known. 
A  sketch  plan  of  it  by  Latrobe,  showing  merely  the  outline  of  the  exterior  walls,  is  preserved 
in  one  of  his  note-books,  belonging  to  Ferdinand  C.  Latrobe.  One  of  the  reliefs  in  marble 
carved  by  the  sculptor  lardella  for  the  panels  above  the  windows,  together  with  two  Ionic 
capitals,  remains  near  the  quarry  at  Consohocken  from  which  they  came.  They  are  illustrated 
in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  vol.  3,  p.  23.  x'\nother  relief  of  the  series  may  be  recognized  as 
adorning  one  of  the  Drayton  tombs  in  South  Carolina,  of  which  there  is  a  photograph  in  the 
same  work,  part  11,  plate  20. 

Mount  Pleasant,  Fairmount  Park  (figs.  39,  50,  52>  ^"^^  9^)-  Jol^"  Macpherson,  who  built 
the  house,  bought  the  land  in  September,  1761.  Westcott,  "Historic  Mansions  of  Philadelphia," 
p.  214.  Measured  plans,  elevations,  and  details  are  published  in  "The  Georgian  Period," 
part  4,  plates  30,  32,  j;^,  35,  36. 

Houses  on  Ninth  Street,  between  Walnut  and  Locust  Streets.  The  original  design  for 
this  block  by  Robert  Mills,  dated  1S09,  is  preserved  by  Alexander  Dimitry,  and  will  shortly 
be  published  by  Mrs.  Austin  Gallagher  in  her  forthcoming  study  of  Mills. 

William Penn  ("Letitia")  House  (fig.  27).  The  house  seems  to  have  been  begun  before  Penn's 
arrival  in  October,  1682,  but  was  not  occupied  by  him  that  winter.  It  was  apparently  com- 
pleted in  1683.  Penn  returned  to  England  June  12,  1684,  leaving  the  occupancy  of  "my  house 
in  Philadelphia"  to  Thomas  Markham.  See  Westcott,  "Historic  Mansions  of  Philadelphia," 
pp.  14-19,  21.  Cf.  J.  F.  W'atson,  "Annals  of  Philadelphia"  (1830),  pp.  145-149.  It  was 
removed  in  1883  from  its  original  position  on  what  is  now  Letitia  Street  to  Fairmount  Park, 
and  restored  in  accordance  with  old  views.  The  hood  and  the  chimneypiece  are  original  fea- 
tures.   The  cove  cornice  of  wood  is  a  restoration. 

President's  House,  Ninth  Street  South  of  Market  Street.  In  furtherance  of  a  law  passed 
in  1 79 1  this  building  was  erected  for  the  use  ot  the  President  ot  the  LTnited  States.  The  corner- 
stone was  laid  on  May  10,  1792,  and  the  house  was  nearly  completed  when  tendered  March  3, 
1793,  for  the  use  of  John  Adams.  Westcott,  "Historic  Mansions  of  Philadelphia,"  p.  270. 
Engravings  of  it  were  made  by  William  Birch  (fig.  158)  and  others.  Weld,  the  English  traveller, 
an  inaccurate  observer  in  architectural  matters,  says:  "The  original  plan  of  this  building  was 
drawn  by  a  private  gentleman  in  the  neighborhood  of  Philadelphia,"  which,  however,  may  not 
deserve  more  credence  than  Weld's  other  statements  in  regard  to  the  house.  In  1800  it  was 
sold  to  the  University  of  Pennsylvania,  and  has  long  been  demolished. 

John  Reynolds  (Morris)  House,  225  South  Eighth  Street  (fig.  108).  This  house  was  built 
in  1786  by  John  Reynolds,  and  has  the  date  1787  on  the  old  conductor-heads.  It  soon  came 
into  possession  of  Luke  Wistar  Morris.  In  recent  years  it  has  been  restored  by  Effingham  B. 
Morris,  who  removed  the  adjacent  houses  and  raised  the  iron  fences  at  either  side.  An  ele- 
vation and  details  are  given  in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  part  3,  plates  21  and  22;  a  plan,  in  the 
table  of  contents  of  part  3. 

Sansom's  Buildings.  ScharfF  and  Westcott,  "History  of  Philadelphia,"  vol.  i  (1884),  p.  511, 
mention  among  the  "various  improvements  of  1800  and  1801,"  "the  first  row  of  houses  on  a 
uniform  plan  .  .  .  erected  by  or  for  Mr.  Sansom  ...  on  Walnut  street,  north  side,  between 
Seventh  and  Eighth  and  in  the  street  between  Walnut  and  Chestnut,  from  Seventh  to  Eighth, 
afterwards  called  Sansom  Street."  "The  Plan  and  Elevation  of  the  South  Buildings  in  Sansom 
Street  .  .  ."  (fig.  153),  with  the  signature  of  Thomas' Carstairs,  is  preserved  at  the  Ridgway 

289 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

Library  in  a  folio  scrap-book  on  Philadelphia,  numbered  N.  Y.  8.5659  F.  Latrobe,  in  a  letter 
of  January  12,  1816,  in  the  possession  of  Ferdinand  C.  Latrobe,  lists  among  his  works,  from 
1800-1801:  "Mr.  Sansom's  building  ...  in  Walnut  Street." 

Sedglev.  The  land  was  purchased  by  William  Cramond,  March  25,  1799;  the  house  was  im- 
mediately built  and  occupied  by  him  until  his  bankruptcy  in  1806.  Westcott,  "Historic  Man- 
sions of  Philadelphia,"  pp.  449-451.  Westcott  states  that  Latrobe  was  the  architect  of  this 
"Gothic"  villa,  and  Latrobe's  pioneer  position  in  the  Gothic  revival,  in  America  generally, 
confirms  this.  The  house,  then  in  disrepair,  was  pulled  down  after  1857.  An  earl\-  engraving 
forms  one  of  Birch's  series  of  American  country-seats. 

The  "Sl.\te  House"  or  "Slate  Roof  House"  (fig.  23).  This  house,  one  ot  several  built  by 
Samuel  Carpenter  on  part  of  the  lot  purchased  by  him  at  the  founding  of  Philadelphia,  was 
occupied  by  William  Penn  during  the  greater  part  of  his  second  stay  in  Philadelphia.  He 
took  up  his  residence,  here  some  time  in  January,  1700.  See  Westcott,  "Historic  Mansions 
of  Philacielphia,"  p.  42.  A  manuscript  description  ot  1828  states  that  a  narrow  entry  separated 
the  principal  rooms,  from  which  those  in  the  wings  were  reached,  and  says:  "It  is  not  many 
years  since  the  diamond  shaped  sash  remained  in  some  of  the  windows."  See  E.  and  L.  H. 
Carpenter,  "Samuel  Carpenter"  (1912),  pp.  17-24,  where  the  description  is  quoted  in  full. 
The  house  was  pulled  down  in  1867. 

Solitude,  Fairmount  Park..  The  house  was  built  for  John  Penn,  who  came  to  America  in  1783. 
He  writes  of  purchasing  the  land  early  in  1784,  and  ol  taking  possession,  while  the  house 
was  still  unfinished,  in  1785.  Westcott,  "Historic  Mansions  of  Philadelphia,"  pp.  437-441. 
Plans,  elevations,  and  details  are  published  in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  part  6,  plates  10  and 
II  {cf.  fig.  204). 

Waln  House.  Latrobe,  in  a  letter  of  January  10,  1808,  mentions  the  house  as  under  construc- 
tion from  his  designs. 

Whitby  Hall,  Kingsessing,  West  Philadelphi.a..  .'\  date-stone  has  the  date,  1754.  Wise 
and  Beidlenian,  "Colonial  Architecture,"  p.  41.  Sims  and  Willing,  "Old  Philadelphia  Colo- 
nial Details,"  shows  measured  drawings,  plate  43. 

Woodford,  Fairmount  Park..  William  Coleman,  who  built  the  house,  purchased  the  land  in 
1756.  Eberlein  and  Lippincott,  "Colonial  Homes  of  Philadelphia,"  p.  134.  A  plan,  an  eleva- 
tion, and  interior  details  are  in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  part  6,  plates  4  and  5. 

The  Woodlands  (figs.  155  and  185).  The  property  came  by  will  in  1741  to  Andrew  Hamilton, 
the  second,  and  was  left  by  him  in  1747  to  his  son,  William  Hamilton.  "Shortly  after  it  went 
into  the  possession  of  the  Hamiltons  (1735)  a  mansion  was  built  there  which  the  second  Andrew 
occupied  and  his  son  William  after  him.  It  is  supposed  to  have  been  a  comfortable  house, 
but  not  near  so  handsome  in  style  and  appearance  as  the  mansion  which  succeeded  it,  and 
which  it  is  supposed  was  erected  about  the  time  of  the  Revolution" — thus  Westcott,  "Historic 
Mansions,"  p.  424.  Just  when  the  rebuilding  took  place  seems  to  be  indicated  in  some  letters 
of  William  Hamilton  published  in  the  Pennsylvania  Magazine,  vol.  29  (1905),  especially  pp.  146- 
158.  These  make  clear  that  from  early  in  1788  until  the  end  of  1789,  at  least,  radical  building 
operations  were  going  on  at  the  Woodlands,  under  the  direction  of  a  Mr.  Child.  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that  it  was  at  this  time  that  the  house  assumed  its  present  form,  with  the  curved 
rooms,  the  portico,  etc.  A  letter  of  1802  mentions  the  portico  as  under  repair  at  that  date. 
The  house  is  still  little  changed.  We  reproduce  some  measured  drawings  of  it  made  by  Ogden 
Codman  (fig.  109). 

290 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    H  ( )  U  S  F,  S 

Portland,  Maine. — Richard  Hunnewell  (Sheplev)  House.  The  date  of  building  is  given  in 
the  contemporary  "Journals  of  Smith  and  Deane"  (1849)  as  1805  (p.  416).  The  original  draw- 
ings for  the  house  (figs.  112  and  177)  are  preserved  in  the  sketch-book  of  Alexander  Parris, 
now  m  the  Boston  Athenaium,  from  which  a  selection  of  designs  is  shortly  to  be  published  by 
Mrs.  George  F.  Lord. 

Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire. — Langdon  House.  The  date  generally  assigned  to  this  house  is 
17S4,  but  in  1782  the  Marquis  de  Chastellux  wrote,  "Mr.  Langdon  .  .  .  his  house  is  elegant 
and  well  finished  and  the  apartments  well  wainscoted,"  and  it  is  obviously  to  this  house  which 
he  refers.  The  best  photographs  of  it  are  those  published  by  Corner  and  Soderholtz,  "Colonial 
Architecture  in  New  England"  (1892),  plate  35,  and  G.  H.  PoUey,  "Architecture  ...  of  the 
American  Colonies  in  the  Eighteenth  Century"  (1914),  plates  3-6  {cf.  fig.  182). 

Larkin  (Henry  Ladd)  House,  Middle  Street  (fig.  168).  Samuel  Larkin,  who  built  the  house, 
wrote  in  his  diary  August  31,  1829:  "This  day  I  moved  into  the  house  (next  on  the  east)  from 
which  I  moved  in  1817,  November  30,  having  lived  in  the  brick  house  almost  twelve  years." 
C.  S.  Gurney,  "Portsmouth"  (1902),  p.  134. 

Archibald  McPhedris  (Warner)  House  (fig.  56).  The  earliest  published  account  of  this 
house,  in  the  Concord  (N.  H.)  Statesman,  in  July,  1857,  is  republished  in  J.  Wentworth:  "The 
\\'entworth  Genealogy"  (1878),  vol.  i,  p.  302  n.,  and  its  statements  vouched  for  by  a  careful 
student  of  the  records:  "Capt.  McPhedris  married  Sarah  Wentworth.  .  .  .  He  occupied  the 
mansion  but  six  years,  and  died  in  1728."  In  the  text,  pp.  301-302,  is  the  information  that 
Sarah  Wentworth's  father  gave  her  land  as  Mrs.  McPhedris,  June  5,  17 18,  and  that  McPhedris 
made  his  will  May  18,  1728.  These  facts  confirm  the  statement  of  C.  W.  Brewster,  "Rambles 
in  Portsmouth,"  vol.  i  (1859),  p.  138,  that  "the  work  was  commenced  in  1718  and  finished  in 
1723."  The  present  owner  of  the  house,  Miss  Sherburne,  formerly  had  a  number  of  papers 
dealing  with  its  building,  but  these  were  destroyed  by  fire,  and  she  now  retains  only  a  bill  of 
lading  for  furniture,  dated  1716.  It  is  doubtless  by  a  misinterpretation  of  this  that  Gurney, 
"Portsmouth,"  p.  119,  reached  the  conclusion  that  the  house  was  built  in  1712-1715,  and 
occupied  in  17 16.  The  best  interior  photographs  of  the  house  are  published  in  G.  H.  PoUey, 
"Architecture  of  the  American  Colonies  during  the  Eighteenth  Century,"  plates  34  and  35. 

Providence,  Rhode  Island. — John  Brown  House.  Believed  to  have  been  erected  in  1786. 
John  Quincy  Adams  wrote  in  his  diary  September  9,  1789:  "Mr.  John  Brown's  house  is  .  .  . 
the  most  magnificent  and  elegant  private  mansion  that  I  have  ever  seen  on  this  continent." 
Collections  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  second  series,  vol.  16  (1902),  p.  456.  A  num- 
ber of  sketches  of  interior  detail  first  published  in  the  Amertca)i  Architect,  January  15,  1887, 
are  reprinted  in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  part  12,  plates  37,  38. 

Richmond,  Virginia. — Brockenbrough  House  ("White  House  of  the  Confederacy"),  Clay 
and  Twelfth  Streets.  A  letter  of  Brockenbrough  to  Robert  Mills,  May  20,  18 13,  in  the 
possession  of  Alexander  Dimitry,  establishes  the  date  and  authorship  of  this  house.  "Not 
long  before  the  war  .  .  .  Mr.  Lewis  D.  Crenshaw  .  .  .  occupied  it  for  a  brief  period,  during 
which  he  added  the  top  story."     R.  A.  Lancaster,  "Historic  Virginia  Homes"  (191 5),  p.  134. 

Marshall  House,  Ninth  and  Marshall  Streets.  The  deed  of  the  lot  to  John  Marshall,  pre- 
served at  the  house,  is  dated  July  7,  1789. 

Wickham  House  (Valentine  Museum),  Eleventh  and  Clay  Streets.  On  the  second  story 
of  the  bow  toward  the  garden  is  the  date  in  figures  of  the  period:  1 8 12.  The  tradition  of  Mills's 
authorship  is  unbroken. 

291 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

RosEWELL,  Gloucester  County,  Virginia  (figs.  49  and  65).  Rosewell  was  built  by  Mann  Page  I, 
who  was  born  in  1691  and  died  in  1730,  leaving  the  house  to  be  finished  by  his  widow  and  son. 
An  act  of  1744,  authorizing  Mann  Page  II  to  sell  certain  entailed  lands,  recites  that  his  father 
"devised  to  his  wife  Judith,  his  dwelling  house,  with  all  out  houses  thereto  belonging,  where 
he  then  lived,  and  the  mansion  house  then  building."  Hening,  "Statutes  at  Large,"  vol.  5 
(1819),  p.  278.  Bishop  Meade  in  his  "Old  Churches,  Ministers,  and  Families  of  Virginia" 
(1857),  vol.  I,  facing  p.  332,  gives  a  woodcut  of  the  house  prior  to  its  dismantling  by  Thomas  B. 
Booth  between  the  years  1838  and  1855.  This  shows  a  flat  roof  with  a  parapet,  and  a  lantern 
rising  at  either  end.  According  to  R.  C.  M.  Page,  "Genealogy  ot  the  Page  Family  in  ^'irginia," 
second  edition  (1893),  P-  60,  "Mr.  Booth  changed  the  original  flat  roof  to  its  present  shape, 
covering  it  with  galvanized  iron  instead  of  the  lead,  which  he  sold.  .  .  .  The  mahogany  wain- 
scoting was  detached  from  the  walls  of  the  hall  and  sold."  After  standing  in  partial  decay  for 
many  years,  the  house  was  burned  about  1919,  but  the  massive  walls  are  still  erect. 

RoxBURY,  Massachusetts. — Keen  Crafts  House.  The  date  of  this  house,  1805,  and  the  name 
of  the  architect,  Peter  Banner,  are  given  by  W.  \V.  Wheildon  in  his  "Memoir  of  Solomon  Wil- 
lard"  (1865),  pp.  29,  30,  n.  Measured  drawings  of  the  house  were  made  by  Ogden  Codman 
in  1892  (figs.  157  and  197). 

Morton  (Taylor)  House.  William  Bentley  wrote  in  his  diary,  October  12,  1796,  when  on  a 
visit  to  Roxbury  (vol.  2,  p.  201):  "Mrs.  Morton  is  building  a  new  house  upon  the  Road."  As 
Bulfinch  was  Mrs.  Perez  Morton's  first  cousin,  it  Is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  he  was  the 
architect.  Measured  drawings  of  plan,  elevation,  and  details  first  published  in  the  American 
Architect  for  June  20,  1891,  are  reprinted  in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  part  6,  plates  19,  20. 
Many  photographs,  both  of  the  exterior  (fig.  156)  and  of  the  interior,  are  in  the  collection  lent 
by  Ogden  Codman  to  the  Metropolitan  Museum. 

Shirley  Place.  Governor  William  Shirley  purchased  from  General  Samuel  Waldo  on  Novem- 
ber 22,  1746,  a  dwelling-house  and  thirty-three  acres,  including  the  site  of  the  house.  F.  S. 
Drake,  "The  Town  of  Roxbury"  (1875,  reprint  1905),  p.  123.  "A  lawn  of  considerable  ex- 
tent fronted  the  house.  It  was  said  to  have  been  levelled  by  soldiers  returned  from  the 
Louisburg  expedition  (1745).  Mr.  Aaron  D.  Williams  often  heard  his  father  speak  of  having 
seen  the  soldiers  at  work  there."  The  interior  of  the  house  was  much  modified  by  a  later  owner, 
Governor  Eustis,  and  the  whole  building  was  later  moved  to  a  different  site  and  shorn  of  its 
end  porches.  A  fine  photograph  of  the  exterior,  on  the  original  site  (fig.  67),  is  in  the  Museum 
of  the  Society  tor  the  Preservation  of  New  England  Antiquities.  Measured  drawings  by  Ogden 
Codman  show  the  house  before  its  removal,  and  drawings  showing  a  restoration  to  the  original 
form,  prepared  by  William  Wade  Cordingley,  are  published  by  him,  with  his  conclusions,  in 
Old-Time  New  England^  vol.  12  (1921),  pp.  51-63. 

Salem,  Massachusetts.  Houses  designed  by  Samuel  Mclntire  are  reserved  for  discussion  In  the 
writer's  forthcoming  work  on  Mclntire. 

John  Andrew  (Safford)  House,  13  Washington  Square,  West.  William  Bentley  chronicles 
the  progress  of  the  house,  July  13,  1818:  "The  foundation  of  Andrew's  house,  west  of  the 
Square,  is  laid"  ("Diary,"  vol.  4,  p.  S33)'->  October  21,  1819:  "This  week  Capt.  John  Andrews 
is  raising  his  four  large  columns  on  the  south  side  of  his  house"  (623).  The  present  doorway  is 
a  restoration  based  on  that  of  the  Forrester  house  {cf.  fig.  206). 

Boardman  House,  82  Washington  Square,  East.  "Capt.  Boardman  bought  the  land  of  John 
Hodges  in  1782."  B.  F.  Browne,  in  Historical  Collections  oj  the  Essex  Institute,  vol.  4  (1861), 
p.  4.     The  house  was  commented  on  by  Washington  during  his  visit  to  Salem  in  1789. 

29a 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    HOUSES 

Jonathan  Corwix  House,  310  Essex  Street.  Purchased  of  Captain  Nathaniel  Davenport  by 
Jonathan  Corwin  and  considerably  rebuilt  by  him,  according  to  his  contract  with  Daniel 
Andrews,  February  19,  1674-5,  for  "filling,  plastering  and  finishing,"  published  by  S.  Perley  in 
the  Essex  Antiquarian,  vol.  7  (1903),  pp.  169-171.  The  inventory  of  George  Curwin  in  1746 
showed  the  house  still  ot  the  same  accommodations  as  in  1674.  "It  is  said  the  porch  was 
removed  in  that  year  and  with  it  of  course  the  entry  chamber."  lb.,  id.  "In  1746  the  peaked 
roof  was  taken  off  and  a  gambrel-roof  built,"  Salem  Gazette,  December  8,  1826,  quoted  in  His- 
torical Collections  oj  the  Essex  Institute,  vol.  42  (1906),  p.  311.  A  banister  from  the  staircase 
built  on  the  eastern  side  at  this  time,  removed  in  the  modern  reconstruction  of  this  side  for 
commercial  purposes,  is  preserved  in  the  Essex  Institute  Museum.  A  drawing  of  the  original 
stair  in  Millar,  "Some  Colonial  and  Georgian  Houses,"  vol.  i,  plate  25. 

EzERiEL  Hersey  Derby  House  (Maynes  Block.),  202^  Essex  Street.  The  original  drawings 
for  this  house,  hitherto  erroneously  ascribed  to  Mclntire,  are  preserved  at  the  Essex  Institute, 
and  have  been  published  by  Cousins  and  Riley,  "The  Woodcarver  of  Salem,"  facing  p.  68, 
along  with  photographs  of  the  building.  The  legends  on  the  drawings  are  unmistakably  in 
Bulfinch's  handwriting.  Two  of  the  drawings  are  watermarked  with  the  date  1798,  and  must 
fall  after  this  time.  The  land  on  which  the  house  stood,  "with  all  the  buildings  thereon,"  had 
been  conveyed  to  Elias  Hasket  Derby  by  John  Saunders  December  10,  1795.  Essex  Deeds, 
159  :  206.  Elias  Hasket  Derby  left  by  will  to  his  son  Ezekiel  Hersey:  "the  house  and  land  in 
Essex  street  .  .  .  which  I  purchased  of  John  Saunders  in  which  the  said  Ezekiel  Hersey  now 
lives."  Essex  Probate  Records,  367  :  93.  It  would  seem,  then,  that  the  new  house  had  not 
been  built  prior  to  the  death  of  the  father  in  1799,  but  was  undertaken  by  the  son  immediately 
afterward.  After  a  number  of  changes  of  ownership,  it  was  finally  remodelled  into  shops  and 
offices,  but  some  of  the  original  finish  remains,  both  on  the  exterior  and  on  the  interior. 

Pickering  Dodge  (Shreve)  House,  29  Chestnut  Street  (fig.  176).  U.  G.  Spofford  states  in  a 
letter  to  Francis  H.  Lee,  dated  May  21,  1884:  "The  Dodge  Place  was  built  by  Mr.  David 
Lord,  the  Barn  was  Erected  in  the  fall  of  22.  All  the  woodwork  for  the  house  was  .  .  .  got 
out  in  the  Winter.  .  .  .  Mr.  Lord  was  the  Architect  of  the  House.  He  made  and  drew  us 
several  patterns  of  fancy  Architraves  .  .  .  and  we  young  Carpenters  would  profit  by  it.  .  .  . 
I  assisted  in  building  the  Barn  in  the  fall  and  worked  through  the  winter  till  April  in  getting 
out  finish  for  the  House."  F.  H.  Lee's  "Scrap  Book"  at  the  Essex  Institute.  Measured 
drawings  of  the  central  motive  are  in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  part  7,  plate  17;  photographs  in 
Cousins,  "Fifty  Salem  Doorways"  (1912),  plates  39  and  40. 

Philip  English  House,  formerly  standing  at  Essex  Street  and  English  Street.  An  old  house  on 
the  site  was  conveyed  to  the  great  merchant,  Philip  English,  January  3,  1682-3,  at  a  price 
of  sixty  pounds.  He  shortly  took  it  down  and  erected  his  "great  house,"  raised  in  1690  accord- 
ing to  Bentley,  and  plundered  during  the  witchcraft  delusion  of  1692.  See  S.  Perley,  "Salem 
in  1700,"  Essex  Antiquarian,  vol.  9  (1905),  pp.  168-169.  It  was  demolished  in  1833.  ''^'''  old. 
view  is  preserved  at  the  Essex  Institute.  William  Bentley,  who  described  the  house  in  1791 
and  1793,  stated  that  "Two  gable  ends  in  the  west  part  (front),  another  in  the  east  have  been 
taken  down."  See  his  "Diary,"  vol.  i  (1905),  p.  248;  vol.  2  (1907),  pp.  22-26.  When  the  house 
passed  by  will  in  1785,  it  had  to  the  west  a  "great  porch"  and  a  "porch  chamber"  not  shown 
in  the  view.     Perley,  he.  cit. 

Daniel  Epes  ("Governor  Endecott")  House,  formerly  standing  near  what  is  now  c,t,  Wash- 
ington Street.  This  house  has  been  mistakenly  identified  as  that  of  Governor  John  Endecott, 
and  has  even  been  supposed  to  have  been  the  house  erected  in  1624  for  the  Dorchester  .Adven- 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

turers  at  Cape  Ann,  removed  thence  in  1628.  See  Historical  Collections  of  the  Essex  Institute, 
vol.  I  (1859),  p.  156,  and  vol.  1  (i860),  pp.  39-42,  where  the  later  history  of  the  house  is  also 
traced,  and  an  old  drawing  is  reproduced,  "representing  it  as  it  appeared  in  177";,  before  any 
alteration  in  its  style  of  architecture  had  taken  place."  The  inadequacies  of  the  argument  for 
its  identification  with  the  houses  named  need  not  be  pointed  out  in  detail,  since  we  find  that 
the  small  lot  where  it  stands  was  conveyed  to  Daniel  Epes  in  April,  1679,  without  any  buildings 
on  it.  He  purchased  the  surrounding  land  in  1681,  and  died  possessed  of  the  land  and  house 
in  1722.  See  S.  Perley,  "Salem  in  1700,"  Essex  Antiquarian,  vol.  8  (1904),  pp.  34-35,  where 
the  same  cut  is  again  reproduced.  In  1792  the  house  was  raised  a  story  and  otherwise  remod- 
elled out  of  recognition,  but  it  stood  until  after  1850.  A  part  of  one  of  its  oak  timbers  is  in  the 
museum  of  the  Essex  Institute. 

John  Forrester  House  (Salem  Club),  29  Washington  Square.  The  progress  of  this  house 
may  be  traced  in  William  Bentley's  "Diary":  July  3,  1818,  cellar  (vol.  4,  p.  530);  July  24  "not 
yet  above  the  first  story"  (534);  October  21,  1919,  "Forrester  is  now  preparing  the  front  of  his 
house  .  .  .  which  will  soon  be  ready  for  him"  (624);  December  9,  "Forrester  is  moving  into  his 
new  house"  (634).  When,  after  being  long  in  the  Peabody  family,  the  house  was  sold  to  the 
Salem  Club  in  1893,  a  fine  white  marble  mantelpiece  was  removed  from  the  right  front  parlor, 
and  the  present  wooden  mantelpiece,  a  modern  reproduction  of  the  mantel  in  the  Kimball 
house,  Pickman  Street,  was  substituted.  Measured  drawings  and  details  of  the  front  are  pub- 
lished in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  part  7,  plate  15. 

William  Gray  House  (Essex  House),  176^^  Essex  Street.  The  date  of  this  house,  which 
stood  on  the  site  of  the  Sun  Tavern,  is  fixed  by  a  reference  by  Bentley  to  the  removal  of  the 
tavern,  February  12,  1801  ("Diary,"  vol.  2,  p.  365).  On  October  9,  1804,  Margaret  Holyoke 
wrote  in  her  diary  (p.  145):  "Mr.  Gray's  three  chimneys  were  blown  down."  After  Gray's 
removal  from  Salem  in  1809  his  house  became  the  Essex  House.  In  1896  the  hotel  was  en- 
larged and  remodelled,  and  it  was  again  remodelled  after  a  severe  fire  in  191 5.  An  old  litho- 
graph and  later  photographs  of  the  old  house  are  preserved,  and  from  these  Ralph  W.  Gray 
has  made  a  drawing  reproduced  by  Edward  Gray,  "William  Gray  of  Salem,  Merchant"  (1914), 
facing  p.  30.  Sections  of  the  cornice  (fig.  190)  and  of  the  roof  balustrade  are  preserved  in  the 
museuin  of  the  Essex  Institute.  Of  the  mantel  formerly  in  the  hotel  office  a  photograph  is 
reproduced  by  J.  E.  Chandler,  "The  Colonial  House"  (1916),  p.  228,  and  measured  drawings 
by  Frank  E.  Wallis  in  the  American  Architect,  September  4,  1886. 

Benjamin-  Hooper  House,  also  called  the  Hathaway  house  and  the  "Old  Bakery."  This  stood 
originally  at  23  Washington  Street.  Beniamin  Hooper  acquired  this  lot  October  27,  1682, 
and  died  in  possession  of  lot  and  house  in  or  before  1693.  See  S.  Perley,  "Salem  in  1700," 
Essex  Antiquarian,  pp.  32-33,  which  also  shows  details  of  the  framing.  The  house  originally 
extended  only  for  the  length  of  the  overhanging  portion,  the  part  beyond  the  chimney  being 
in  the  style  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The  house  was  removed  to  the  grounds  at  54  Turner 
Street  and  restored  in  1911.  The  size  and  position  of  the  restored  casement  frames  and  the 
former  existence  of  the  restored  front  gable  were  determined  by  indications  in  the  framing. 
The  wide  board  about  the  base  of  the  house  is  an  authentic  feature.  The  upper  part  of  the 
"drops"  remained  in  place,  the  lower  part  being  restored  on  the  basis  of  examples  elsewhere, 
as  is  the  case  with  the  doorway  and  door.  The  entire  chimney  with  its  fireplaces  is  new.  See 
J.  E.  Chandler,  "The  Colonial  House"  (1916),  pp.  86-90,  with  measured  elevations  and  photo- 
graphs; also  Visitor  s  Guide  to  Salem  (1916),  p.  35. 

Joseph  Hosmer  (Waters)  House.  William  Bentley  wrote  in  his  diary.  May  2,  1795  (vol.  2, 
p.  135):  "Saw  the  raising  of  Hosmer's  House." 

294 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    HOUSES 

Lewis  Hunt  House,  formerly  standing  on  the  northwest  corner  of  Washington  and  Lynde 
Streets.  The  lot  was  conveyed  to  Lewis  Hunt,  September  15,  1698^  he  constructed  the  house 
and  occupied  it  until  his  death  in  1717.  S.  Perley,  "Salem  in  1700,"  Essex  Antiquarian,  vol.  2 
(1898),  p.  173.     It  was  taken  down  in  1863,  but  several  photographs  of  it  are  extant. 

Narboxxe  House,  71  Essex  Street,  also  known  as  the  Simon  Willard  house.  The  lot  belonged 
to  Paul  Mansfield  in  1661,  and  to  Thomas  Ives,  with  the  house  thereon,  about  1671.  See 
S.  Perlev,  "Salem  in  1700,"  Essex  Antiquarian,  vol.  10  (1906),  p.  126. 

Nichols  House,  37  Chestnut  Street.  In  a  letter  to  Francis  H.  Lee,  dated  January,  1884, 
John  H.  Nichols  writes:  "My  first  recollection  of  Chestnut  Street  was  in  18 16  (when  I  was 
five  years  of  age)  the  foundation  on  my  father's  house  (No.  37)  being  then  laid.  Prior  to  its 
erection  I  remember  that  Jabez  Smith  the  master  carpenter,  came  to  the  house  then  occupied 
bv  the  family  .  .  .  and  submitted  plans  no  architect  having  been  employed."  F.  H.  Lee's 
Scrap  Book  I,  p.  222,  Essex  Institute.  A  photograph  of  the  doorway  and  porch  is  reproduced 
in  Cousins,  "Fifty  Salem  Doorways,"  plate  32. 

Timothy  Or.ve  House,  266  Essex  Street.  Colonel  Benjamin  Pickman  speaks  in  1793  of  this 
house,  now  destroyed,  as  belonging  to  his  sister-in-law,  "daughter  to  Mr.  Timothy  Orne  .  .  . 
who  built  It  in  1761."  Historical  Collections  oj  the  Essex  Institute,  vol.  6  (1864),  p.  106.  Photo- 
graphs of  the  exterior  and  the  stairway  still  exist. 

Deliveraxce  Parkman  House,  formerly  standing  on  the  northeast  corner  of  Essex  and  North 
Streets.  The  lot  came  into  the  possession  of  Deliverance  Parkman  through  Sarah  Veren,  whom 
he  married  "9:  10  mo:  1673,"  and  the  house  was  doubtless  built  before  her  death  "14:  11 : 
1681-2."  See  S.  Perley,  "Salem  in  1700,"  Essex  Antiquarian,  vol.  2  (1898),  p.  171.  A  view 
of  it  early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  preserved  at  the  Essex  Institute,  is  reproduced,  redrawn, 
ib.,  lacing  p.  178. 

John  Pickering  House,  18  Broad  Street.  Speaking  of  some  alterations  made  in  the  house, 
Timothy  Pickering  writes:  "I  remember  hearing  my  father  say,  that  when  he  made  the  altera- 
tions and  repairs  above  mentioned,  the  Eastern  End  of  the  house  was  one  hundred  years  old, 
and  the  western  end  Eighty  years  old.  Consequently  the  Eastern  End  is  now  (December  3, 
1828)  177  years  old.  For  I  am  83,  and  was  but  six  years  old  in  July,  1751,  the  year  when  the 
alterations  and  repairs  took  place."  This  would  place  the  older  part  about  1 651,  the  newer 
about  1671,  with  a  reasonable  margin  for  the  use  of  round  numbers  by  the  father.  The  ground 
on  which  the  house  stands  was  conveyed  June  10,  1659,  to  John  and  Jonathan  Pickering,  "suc- 
cessors to  their  father  John,"  who  had  owned  the  adjoining  lot  for  some  years  prior  to  his 
death  in  1657.  See  S.  Perley,  "Salem  in  1700,"  Essex  Antiquarian,  vol.  4  (1900),  p.  169. 
From  the  reference  to  the  elder  John  in  the  deed  we  must  assume  that  he  had  himself  some 
connection  with  the  lot,  perhaps  a  lease,  so  that  it  is  not  impossible  that  the  house  was  built 
prior  to  the  deed.  An  iron  fireback  from  the  house,  reproduced  in  "The  Pickering  Genealogy" 
(1897),  vol.  I,  p.  23,  with  the  initials  I  P  A  for  John  and  Alice  Pickering  has  the  date  1660,  but 
this  may  well  be  some  years  after  the  erection  of  the  house.  A  lean-to  was  added  later,  and 
its  roof  was  raised  to  give  a  second  story  at  the  rear  in  1751,  as  Colonel  Pickering  relates  in 
connection  with  the  passage  quoted  above,  cited  from  the  transcript  in  F.  H.  Lee's  Scrap 
Book  I  at  the  Essex  Institute.  The  house  was  remodelled  in  1841,  when  the  present  exterior 
finish  was  added. 

Benjamin  Pickman  House,  165  Essex  Street,  Salem  (fig.  6;^).  Colonel  Benjamin  Pickman, 
the  owner,  born  in  1740,  wrote  in  1793  that  it  "was  built  in  1750  by  Benjamin  Pickman,  Esq., 
father  of  the  writer."     Historical  Collections  of  the  Essex  Institute,  vol.  6  (1864),  p.  95.    After 

-95 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

the  marriage  of  Anstis  Derby  to  Benjamin  Pickman,  Jr.,  a  circular  bow  was  added  at  the  rear, 
with  finish  by  Samuel  Mclntire  now  preserved  at  the  Essex  Institute  and  the  Peabody  Museum. 
An  interior  sketch  is  shown  by  Arthur  Little,  "Early  New  England  Interiors"  (1878).  The 
house  has  been  much  damaged  by  remodelling.  The  carved  and  gilded  codfish  which  adorned 
the  block  ends  of  the  stairs  are  now  mostly  incorporated  in  a  house  at  Newport,  although  the 
Essex  Institute  has  two  of  them. 

Benjamin  Pickman  (Derby)  House,  70  Washington  Street.  Colonel  Benjamin  Pickman,  son 
of  the  builder,  wrote  in  1793:  "The  house  was  built  in  1764."  Historical  Collections  of  the 
Essex  Institute,  vol.  6  (1864),  p.  102.  This  house  was  refronted,  during  the  occupancy  of  Elias 
Hasket  Derby,  from  a  design  by  Mclntire  on  paper  watermarked  1786.  A  view  of  the  Salem 
Court  House,  published  in  the  Massachusetts  Magazine  for  March,  1790,  still  shows  the  old 
front.  A  view  in  the  early  nineteenth  century  "M.J.D.  del."  was  reproduced  by  "Pendle- 
ton's Litho."  The  house  was  torn  down  in  1915.  Photographs  of  the  exterior  and  of  the  stairs 
are  preserved.     The  cupola  of  the  house  is  in  the  gardens  of  the  Essex  Institute. 

Dudley  L.  Pickman  (Shreve-Little)  House,  27  Chestnut  Street.  Bentley  writes,  December 
9,  1 8 19  ("Diary,"  vol.  4,  p.  634):  "D.  Pickman's  house  on  the  Pickering  farm  is  covered."  The 
porch  and  doorway  have  been  frequently  reproduced,  for  instance  in  Cousins,  "Fifty  Sa'.em 
Doorways,"  plate  36. 

Nathaniel  Silsbee  House,  94  Washington  Square  (fig.  173).  Silsbee  writes  in  his  autobiography, 
published  in  the  Historical  Collections  of  the  Essex  Institute,  vol.  25  (1899),  p.  36:  "On  my 
return  to  Salem  in  May,  1818,  at  the  close  of  my  first  congressional  session,  I  purchased 
...  a  site  ...  on  the  east  side  of  Pleasant  Street  and  opposite  Washington  Square,  and 
commenced  to  build  thereon  a  new  brick  dwelling  house.  .  .  .  The  nineteenth  day  of  October, 
1 8 19  .  .  .  my  family  took  possession  of  it  as  their  future  residence."  Bentley  chronicles  the 
same  events.  ("Diary,"  vol.  4,  pp.  533,  588,  624.)  The  Essex  Institute  has  photographs  of 
the  house  taken  in  1855,  before  considerable  modifications  were  made  in  it. 

Turner  House  ("House  of  the  Seven  Gables"),  54  Turner  Street.  We  may  hope  for  a  full 
publication  of  the  documents  regarding  this  house  in  a  forthcoming  book  by  Donald  Millar. 
Meanwhile  the  principal  facts  may  be  summarized  with  his  aid  and  that  of  George  Francis 
Dow.  The  lot  and  "one  old  dwelling  house"  were  sold  by  Ann  More  to  John  Turner,  April  17, 
1668.  This  house,  on  the  east  side  of  what  is  now  Turner  Street,  seems  to  have  been  still  stand- 
ing in  1745,  for  John  Turner  III  entered  a  claim  (in  town  records)  for  common  rights  on  ac- 
count of  his  mansion,  built  before  1702,  and  Widow  More's  cottage,  built  before  1661,  and  in 
the  division  of  his  property  in  1745  is  mentioned  "Land  on  east  side  of  the  lane,  old  house  and 
barn,  £250."  The  claim  for  common  rights,  just  mentioned,  published  by  H.  F.  Waters  in  a 
newspaper  letter  of  1879,  disposes  of  the  contention  of  Sidney  Perley  in  the  Essex  Antiquarian, 
vol.  10  (1906),  pp.  62-65,  that  John  Turner  I  removed  the  widow's  house  and  erected  one  of 
his  own  on  its  site.  Perley  contended  that  the  present  house  was  erected  by  John  Turner  III 
after  the  division  of  the  estate  of  his  father  in  1696,  but  this  is  refuted  by  the  inventory  of 
John  Turner  II,  who  died  in  1692,  which  lists  the  rooms  of  the  existing  house,  including  those 
of  the  unique  south  wing.  LTnfortunately  the  goods  of  John  I,  who  died  in  1680,  were  not 
listed  by  rooms,  so  that,  although  it  is  probable  he  built  the  main  body  of  the  house,  and  his 
son  the  south  wing,  this  is  not  definitely  established.  The  belief  of  H.  F.  Waters  and  others 
that  the  house  was  built  in  1669,  immediately  after  the  purchase  of  the  land,  would  seem  to 
be  merely  a  priori.  The  existence  of  the  old  More  house  would  have  permitted  a  delay  ot  some 
years.  The  later  history  of  the  house  is  traced  by  Donald  Millar  in  his  "Colonial  and  Georgian 
Houses,"  where  full  measured  drawings  and  details  are  given,  plates  10-14. 

296 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    HOUSES 

JoHx  Ward  House  (figs.  6  and  9).  The  house  originally  stood  at  38  St.  Peter  Street,  with  the 
overhanging  end  to  the  west,  instead  of  to  the  south,  as  now.  The  lot  on  which  the  house  itself 
stood  was  conveyed  to  John  Ward  November  13,  1684.  See  S.  Perley,  "Salem  in  1700,"  Essex 
yinliqitaria?],  vol.  8  (1904),  p.  70.  The  house  at  first  consisted  only  of  the  entry  and  the  two 
western  rooms,  which  are  framed  of  pine,  the  rooms  on  the  other  side  of  the  chimney  being 
framed  of  oak.  The  lean-to  represents  a  third  period  of  building,  prior  to  Ward's  death  in  1732, 
when  it  appears  in  his  inventory.  The  house  was  removed  to  the  grounds  of  the  Essex  Institute 
and  restored  about  1911.  The  chimney,  the  wainscot  sheathing,  and  the  sash  are  entirely  new, 
as  is  the  stair,  copied  from  that  of  the  Capen  house,  Topsfield.  The  front  gables  and  the  case- 
ment window-frames  are  restored  in  accordance  with  the  indications  of  the  framing.  Millar, 
"Colonial  and  Georgian  Houses,"  vol.  i,  intro.  and  plates  4  and  5,  with  plans,  etc. 

"Witch  House,"  see  Jonathan  Corwin  House. 

Sandstone  Township,  Michigan. — Chapel  House.  This  interesting  stone  house,  with  its  bas- 
relief,  "Diana,"  in  the  gable,  bears  the  carved  inscription  on  the  lintel  of  the  doorway:  "Caleb 
M.  Chapel  June  1850."     In  1918  the  porches  were  widened  and  their  detail  was  much  damaged. 

Saugus,  Massachusetts. — "Scotch  House,"  purchased  February  4,  1686-7,  by  William  Board- 
man  (fig.  3).  Painstaking  investigations  by  Walter  Kendall  Watkins  have  established  the 
fact  that  this  was  built  for  the  Undertakers  of  the  Ironworks  there  in  1651,  to  house  some  of 
the  prisoners  captured  at  the  Battle  of  Dunbar  and  sent  to  America  as  indentured  servants. 
The  mass  of  documents  found  by  Mr.  Watkins  has  not  yet  been  published,  but  he  writes  us: 
"The  legal  troubles  incident  to  the  erection  of  the  'Scotch  House'  and  the  fact  of  its  mention 
on  the  boundary  line  of  Boston  and  Saugus  in  the  town  perambulations  of  the  17th  and  i8th 
century  makes  its  identity  unquestioned."  Originally  there  were  two  rooms  each  up-stairs 
and  down,  the  lean-to  being  an  addition.  The  second-story  rooms  still  have  the  original  unplas- 
tered  ceilings;  the  original  chimney,  many  original  doors,  and  much  original  sheathing  remain 
in  place.  The  stair  to  the  garret  is  the  original  one,  but  the  lower  stair  is  later  in  date.  The 
house  was  acquired  by  the  Society  for  the  Preservation  of  New  England  Antiquities  in  1913- 
1914,  and  some  repairs  have  been  made.  See  its  Bulletin,  especially  no.  12  (1915),  p.  7;  no.  18 
(1918),  pp.  18-23;  and  no.  20  (1919),  p.  7.  Millar,  "Colonial  and  Georgian  Houses,"  vol.  I, 
intro.  and  plates  1-3,  with  plans,  etc. 

Smith's  Fort,  Gray's  Creek,  Surry  County,  Virginia. — Thomas  W^arren  House  (fig.  18).  A 
deposition  of  March,  1677,  stating  that  "about  five  or  six  and  twenty  years  since,"  Thomas 
Warren  "did  begin  to  build  that  fifty  foot  Brick  house  which  now  stands"  on  Smith's  Fort 
plantation,  sets  the  date  as  1651  or  1652.  See  JFilliani  and  Mary  College  Quarterly,  vol.  8 
(1900),  pp.  151-152.  The  interior  has  panelling  with  pilasters  on  pedestals,  apparently  of  the 
early  eighteenth  century,  and  the  exterior  has  been  much  modernized. 

Stratford,  Westmoreland  County,  Virginia  (figs.  38,  41,  53,  and  84).  The  date  of  the  house 
is  convincingly  discussed,  on  the  basis  of  contemporary  documents,  and  fixed  as  1725-1730,  by 
F.  W.  .'Alexander,  "Stratford  Hall  and  the  Lees"  (1912),  pp.  47,  59- 

Tarrvtown,  New  York. — Sunnyside.  The  stone  cottage  on  the  site  was  remodelled  for  Wash- 
ington Irving  in  1835  ^Y  ^^^  architect  George  Harvey,  according  to  documents  published  by 
P.  M.  Irving,  "Life  and  Letters  of  Irving"  (1882),  pp.  276-283.  The  house  has  since  been 
greatlv  enlarged,  but  in  a  direction  which  does  not  modify  the  most  familiar  aspect. 

Thomaston,  Maine. — Henry  Knox  House.  In  Easton's  "History  of  Thomaston"  (1S65),  vol.  i, 
chapter  11  is  devoted  to  "Knox  and  his  Home  in  Thomaston."     On  page  209  it  is  stated  that 

297 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

the  house  was  begun  in  1793  "under  the  superintendence  of  Ebenezer  Denton,  the  architect." 
Photographs  of  the  house,  now  demoHshed,  still  exist,  and  on  the  back  ot  a  piece  of  wall-paper 
from  it,  preserved  at  the  Maine  Historical  Society,  is  a  pencil-sketch  of  the  plan.  This  is  so 
closely  identical  with  the  plan  of  the  Barrell  house,  begim  the  year  before,  as  to  lead  to  the 
supposition  that  Denton  erected  the  house  from  a  design  by  Bulfinch. 

ToPSFiELD,  Massachusetts. — Capen  House  (figs.  5,  8,  13,  and  14).  The  date  of  raising,  "JUN 
Ye  8  1683"  (Millar)  or  "JULY  Ye  8  1683"  (Dow),  was  found  during  restoration  inscribed  on 
the  frame  in  two  places.  The  land  was  granted  by  the  town  to  Reverend  Joseph  Capen  and 
laid  out  by  him  February  28,  1682-3.  See  S.  Perley,  "Topsfield  in  1700,"  Essex  Jntiqiiarian, 
vol.  5,  1901,  p.  100.  The  house  was  acquired  by  the  Topsfield  Historical  Society  and  re- 
stored in  1913.  The  fireplaces,  the  stair  railing  and  newel,  and  the  middle  bracket  ot  one 
gable,  as  well  as  the  size  and  position  of  the  window  openings,  are  original;  the  sash,  door, 
sheathing,  chimney-top,  and  penciills  are  restored  on  analogy  with  examples  elsewhere.  D. 
Millar,  in  Architectural  Record,  vol.  38  (I915),  pp.  349-361,  with  photographs  and  measured 
drawings,  including  plans;  in  "Colonial  and  Georgian  Houses,"  intro.  and  plates  6  and  7;  and 
in  Old-Thne  New  England,  vol.  11  (1920),  pp.  3-8,  with  photographs.  G.  F.  Dow,  in  Historical 
Collections  of  the  Topsfield  Historical  Society,  vol.  19  (1914). 

TucKAHOE,  Goochland  County,  Virginia  (figs.  41,  42,  83,  and  97).  The  plantation  was  estab- 
lished by  Thomas  Randolph  "of  Tuckahoe,"  who  was  born  in  1683,  married  Judith  Churchill 
about  1710,  and  died  in  1730.  William  Byrd  describes  a  visit  to  it  in  1732  in  his  "Progress  to 
the  Mines,"  and  although  he  does  not  describe  the  house,  it  is  clear  that  it  was  a  considerable 
one.  J.  S.  Bassett,  "Writings  of  William  Byrd"  (1901),  pp.  337-342.  The  son,  William  Ran- 
dolph, born  in  1712,  married  about  1735,  and  may  have  enlarged  it. 

Waltham,  Massachusetts. — Gore  House  (figs.  124,  178,  179,  195,  and  211).  The  present  house 
is  the  successor  of  one  built  very  shortly  previous,  of  which  Bentley  writes  in  September,  1793 
("Diary,"  vol.  2,  p.  60):  "We  saw  rising  on  our  right  the  splendid  seat  belonging  to  Gore,  the 
right  wing  was  not  completed  but  the  whole  formed  a  fine  object."  .\  writer  quoted  in  the 
Proceedings  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  Society,  vol.  13,  p.  420,  sa)-s:  "The  house  be  built 
there  was  burnt  down  March  19,  1799,  while  I  lived  there,"  and  states  that  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Gore  arrived  from  England  April  12,  1804,  after  the  rebuilding. 

Lyman  House  (figs.  162  and  200).  With  other  works  by  Samuel  McLitire,  this  is  reserved  for 
discussion  in  the  writer's  forthcoming  work  on  this  artist. 

Washington,  District  of  Columbia. — Belleview.  The  portico  of  Belleview  was  added  by 
Latrobe  in  1813,  according  to  a  letter  of  his  dated  July  7,  in  the  possession  of  Ferdinand  C. 
Latrobe. 

Stephen  Decatur  House,  Lafayette  Square.  Latrobe  was  the  architect,  as  is  revealed  by 
letters  in  the  possession  of  Ferdinand  C.  Latrobe.  Proposals  were  received  June  4,  18 17. 
The  house  has  been  much  injured  by  remodelling.  Measured  drawings  of  the  vestibule  are 
published  by  H.  F.  Cunningham,  "Georgian  Architecture  in  the  District  of  Columbia,"  1914, 
plates  26  and  27. 

The  Octagon,  1741  New  York  Avenue  (figs.  129,  193,  207,  and  208).  The  land  was  purchased 
April  19,  1797;  construction  was  begun  in  1798  and  completed  in  1800.  Glenn  Brown,  "The 
Octagon"  (1916),  p.  5.  This  folio  work  contains  old  views  of  the  house,  photographs,  and  com- 
plete measured  drawings. 

298 


NOTES    ON    INDIVIDUAL    HOUSES 

Tudor  Place,  Georgetown-.  The  studies  tor  the  plan  of  the  house,  by  Thornton,  are  on  paper 
watermarked  1810.  They  are  preserved  in  the  Division  of  Manuscripts,  Library  of  Congress, 
Thornton  Papers,  and  will  shortly  be  published  by  Wells  Bennett.  Another  study  for  the  plan 
is  reproduced  by  Glenn  Brown  in  the  Architectural  Record,  vol.  6  (1896),  p.  64.  Studies  for 
the  elevation  are  at  the  Octagon  House.  A  plan  ot  the  house  as  it  stands  is  published  in  "The 
Georgian  Period,"  part  3,  in  the  table  of  contents. 

Van  Ness  House.  This  house,  which  stood  until  1907  on  the  site  of  the  Pan-American  Union, 
was  begun  in  18 13  on  designs  by  Latrobe.  Witness  his  letter  to  General  John  P.  Van  Ness, 
September  26,  1S13.  Measured  drawings  (figs,  in  and  130)  were  made  of  it  for  Ogden  Cod- 
man  before  its  destruction,  and  photographs  also  exist.  An  early  description  of  the  house  and 
grounds  is  given  by  Jonathan  Elliot,  "Historical  Sketches  of  .  .  .  the  District  of  Columbia" 
(1830),  pp.  270-272.  Cf.  .Allen  C.  Clark,  "General  John  Peter  Van  Ness,"  Records  of  the 
Columbia  Historical  Society,  vol.  22  (1919),  pp.  125-204,  with  illustrations. 

The  White  House.  The  competition  programme  was  dated  March  14,  1792,  and  the  first  pre- 
mium was  awarded  to  James  Hoban  on  July  17.  His  elevation  (fig.  159)  was  first  published 
in  "The  Restoration  of  the  White  House"  (1903),  after  p.  47;  his  plan  (fig.  119)  in  Kimball: 
"Thomas  Jefferson,  Architect,"  fig.  179,  where  the  later  modifications  of  the  design  are  also 
discussed. 

Watertowx,  M.4SSACHUSETTS. — 0.4K.LEY.  In  1 809,  according  to  the  circumstantial  account  by 
S.  E.  Morrison,  "Harrison  Gray  Otis"  (1913),  vol.  i,  p.  230,  Otis  completely  transformed  a 
farmhouse  at  Watertown  into  the  country-seat  of  Oakley.  On  its  conversion  into  the  Oakley 
Country  Club,  in  1898,  it  was  radically  remodelled.  A  photograph  of  the  interior  of  its  oval 
drawing-room  is  among  those  lent  to  the  Metropolitan  Museum  by  Ogden  Codman. 

Westover,  Charles  City  Cou.n'tv,  Virginia  (figs.  46  and  59).  J.  S.  Bassett,  editor  of  "The 
Writings  of  William  Byrd"  (1901),  from  an  intimate  knowledge  of  Byrd's  movements  and 
financial  affairs,  fixes  (p.  Ixxxi)  the  period  shortly  after  1726  as  the  time  of  the  building  of  the 
mansion-house.  A  plat  of  1735  shows  all  the  largest  buildings.  Byrd  had  then  finished  his 
grounds.  On  p.  Ixxxviii,  n.,  Bassett  quotes  notes  of  Miss  Elizabeth  Byrd  Nicholas  to  the  ef- 
fect that  the  house  was  twice  burned,  the  last  fire  being  on  the  occasion  of  the  christening  of 
that  William  Byrd  who  was  born  August  2,  1749.  Besides  the  outbuilding  to  the  left  in  our 
photograph  there  was  one  on  the  other  side,  which  appears  in  a  sketch  reproduced  in  "Battles 
and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War,"  vol.  2  (1887),  p.  425.  .After  the  purchase  of  the  estate  by  Mrs. 
W.  >L  Ramsav  in  1901  this  wing  was  "restored"  with  modifications,  and  both  wings  were  con- 
nected with  the  house  by  brick  passages.  Some  changes  also  were  made  in  the  interior.  Very 
full  publications  of  photographs  may  be  found  in  House  and  Garden,  vol.  11  (1907),  pp.  231- 
235,  and  Country  Life  in  America,  vol.  4  (1907),  pp.  414-41S,  with  a  plan,  and  vol.  30  (1916), 
pp.  25-27. 

Whitehall,  .Anne  Arundel  County,  Maryland  (fig.  50).  Governor  Horatio  Sharpe  secured 
the  tract  by  act  of  the  legislature  in  1763  and  by  virtue  of  a  power  of  attorney  of  1764.  J.  D. 
Warfield,  "The  Founders  of  Anne  Arundel  and  Howard  Counties"  (1905),  p.  213.  The  first 
mention  of  the  house  is  a  letter  of  Lord  Baltimore  to  Sharpe,  February  29,  1764:  "Captain 
Love  having  hinted  to  me  of  your  desire  for  some  English  Hares  he  informs  me  you  have  a 
villa  and  grounds  to  keep  them  in."  Love  had  left  Maryland  in  September,  1763.  Archives 
of  Maryland,  vol.  3  (1895),  p.  142.  A  French  traveller  who  visited  Sharpe  on  June  22,  1765, 
wrote,  "He  has  bought  a  farm  and  is  building  a  prety  box  of  a  house  on  the  Bay  side,  which  he 
Calls  white  hall,"  American  Historical  Review,  vol.  27  (1921),  p.  72.    William  Eddis  wrote  under 

-99 


AMERICAN    DOMESTIC    ARCHITECTURE 

date  of  October  i,  1769:  "Colonel  Sharpe  .  .  .  his  house  is  on  a  large  scale,  the  design  is  excel- 
lent, the  apartments  well  fitted  up,  and  perfectly  convenient.  The  adjacent  grounds  are  so 
judiciously  disposed,  that  utility  and  taste  are  everywhere  happily  united;  and  when  the 
worthy  owner  has  completed  his  extensive  plan,  Whitehall  will  be  one  of  the  most  desirable 
situations  in  this,  or  in  any  ot  the  neighboring  provinces."  "Letters  from  America"  (1792). 
A  structural  examination  ot  Whitehall,  September  26,  1916,  before  the  repointing  of  the  walls, 
revealed  that  the  several  parts  of  the  whole  house  must  have  been  constructed  successively, 
that  the  rooms  over  parlor  and  dining-room,  with  the  stairs  leading  to  them,  were  additions 
subsequent  to  the  first  construction;  that  the  portico  (the  cornice  of  which  is  of  wholly  difi^er- 
ent  profile  from  the  main  cornice  and  intersects  most  awkwardly  with  it)  was  added  still  later. 

Williamsburg,  Virginia. — Governor's  Palace  (figs.  47,  53,  and  114).  The  legislative  act  of 
1705  providing  for  its  building,  with  other  documents,  is  cited  by  Kimball,  "Thomas  Jefferson, 
Architect,"  where  the  sketch  plan  made  by  Jefferson  about  1779  is  reproduced  as  figure  95.  The 
later  history  of  the  house,  destroyed  in  1781,  is  also  traced  there. 

W'ooDLAWN,  Fairfax  County,  Virginia.  The  land  was  left  to  Eleanor  Parke  Lewis  and  her  hus- 
band by  Washington's  will,  drawn  in  July,  1799.  Mrs.  William  Thornton  wrote  in  her  diary, 
August  4,  1800,  during  a  visit  to  Mount  Vernon:  "Mrs.  Lewis  .  .  .  and  I  went  in  Mrs.  Wash- 
ington's carriage  to  see  Mr.  Lewis's  Hill  where  he  is  going  to  build.  Dr.  T.  has  given  him  a 
plan  for  his  house."  Library  of  Congress,  Division  of  Manuscripts.  Whether  the  house  as 
executed  followed  Thornton's  plan  cannot  be  determined,  although  in  the  absence  of  other 
evidence  the  presumption  is  that  it  had  some  influence.  Measured  drawings  of  the  house  may 
be  found  in  "The  Georgian  Period,"  part  6,  plates  20-23. 

Worcester,  Massachusetts.  Simeon  Burt  House,  Chestnut  and  Elm  Streets.  "Madam 
Salisbury  writes  on  February  20,  1833: — T  saw  the  plan  of  his  house  (Mr.  Burt's)  yesterday 
at  Mr.  Carter's.'"  Harriette  M.  Forbes,  "Elias  Carter,  Architect,"  in  Old-Tiiiie  Nezv  England, 
vol.  II  (1920),  p.  64. 

Stephen  Salisbury  House,  Highland  Street.  The  house  was  nearly  completed  at  the  date 
of  a  letter  of  June  19,  1837,  referring  to  Elias  Carter  as  the  designer,  and  quoted  bv  Mrs. 
Forbes,  p.  69,  in  connection  with  photographs  of  the  house. 

Daniel  Waldo  House,  Main  Street.  Several  letters  quoted  by  Mrs.  Forbes  (p.  62)  make 
clear  that  the  house  was  built  in  the  years  1829  and  1830,  for  Daniel  Waldo,  a  patron  of  Elias 
Carter,  architect.  The  house  has  long  been  demolished,  but  an  old  view  of  it  is  published  by 
Mrs.  Forbes. 


300 


i 


INDEX 


INDEX 


The  index  covers  references  in  the  text  and  illustrations,  the  presence  of  an  illustra- 
tion being  indicated  by  a  page  reference  in  Italic  type.  Towns,  county  seats,  and 
plantations  are  listed  alphabetically,  with  houses  under  a  given  town  alphabetically  by 
the  name  of  the  original  owner  (in  most  cases),  with  references  from  other  names  com- 
monly used. 


Academic  style,  in  England,  33,  44,  46,  53-55;  in  the 
Colonies,  44,  45,  46,  50,  53-141 

Adam,  Robert  and  James,  162,  204,  211,  213,  214, 
215,  226,  248,  252,  255;  influence,  145,  150,  152, 
213,  216,  226,  228,  230,  234,  239,  241,  243,  247, 
248,  252,  254,  259;  style,  lio-lll,  133-134 

Adams,  John,  281 

Adams,  John  Qumcy.  283 

Addy,  S.  O.,  views  on  English  houses,  9 

Alabama,  187 

Albany,  New  York.  Schuyler  house,  81,  88,  90,  loi, 
108,  no,  123,  126,  130,  265;  Van  Rensselaer 
Manor-house,  77,  78,  115,  116,  117,  123,  124,  128, 
141,  265 

Alcoves,  155 

Alexandria,  Fairfax  house,  209,  211 

Allen,  Arthur,  266 

Allerton,  Isaac,  12  note 

Almerico,  Paolo,  153,  160,  161,  172 

Amory,  Thomas,  267 

Ampthill,  Chesterfield  County,  Virginia,  79,  86,  265 

Ampthill,  Cumberland  County,  Virgmia,  172,  190, 
224 

Analostan  Island,  192 

Andalusia,  Pennsylvania,  //p,  182,  227,  260,  265 

Andover,  Massachusetts,  Phelps  house,  206 

Andrew,  John,  284 

Andrews,  Daniel,  30,  285 

Annapolis,  Maryland,  124  note,  189 

Brice  house,  "(5,  77  note,  79,  122,  124,  125 
Chase  house,  70,  73,  75,  76,  82,  86,  89,  94,   loi, 
102,  106,  108,  117,  119,  120,  128,  129,  130,  133, 
/J5,  174,  211,  265 
Governor's  house,  78 
Hammond  (Harwood)  house,  78,  79,  81 
Paca  house,  79 

Ann  Arbor,  Michigan,  Wilson  house,  iSi,  185 

Ant^,  220,  227,  229 

Apthorp,  East,  270 

Arches,  lOl,  104,  107-108;  blind,  200,  204-206,  209, 
211,  212;  elliptical,  211,  217,  218;  interior,  77, 
118,  119;  segmental,  loi,  104,  205,  212,  217 


Architects,  in  the  Colonies,  55,  61,  63;  amateur,  146, 

150;  craftsman,   150;   professional,  146 
Architraves,  213,  220,  248,  252;  door  and  window, 

49,  50,  67,  68,  92,   102,   106-107,   115,   119,   120; 
scroll,  120,  123 

Archivolts,  210,  219,  220 

Argall,  Samuel,  9 

Arlington,  Virginia,  //<?,  181,  189,  206,  210,  227,  260, 

266 
Ashdown  House,  Berkshire,  82,  91 
Ashland,  Kentucky,  266 
Ashlar,  152-153 
Athens,  Erechtheum,  179;  Monument  of  Lysicrates, 

228;   Parthenon,   146,   182,   227;  "Temple  of  the 

Wmgless  Victory,"  185 
Athens,  Georgia,  187 

Hill  house,  183,  187-188 
Attribution  on  grounds  of  style,  xviii,  35,  50,  138- 

140,  152,  258  note 
Aubrey,  John,  27 

Babbitt,  Levi,  273 

Babson,  John,  277 

Bachelor's  Hall,  Maryland,  131 

Bacon's  Castle,  Virginia,  40,  41,  43,  44,  45,  47,  49, 

50,  266 
Balcony,  104 

Baltmiore,  Homcwood,  see  Homewood 

Balusters,  30,  no,  129-130,  253-254 

Balustrades,   no;  deck,  88-89;  eaves,  89-90,   192- 

194,  232-234 
Banisters,  see  Balusters 
Banner,  Peter,  198,  206,  237,  238,  284 
Barboursville,  Virginia,  169,  194,  224 
Baroque  forms,   in  America,   104,   112,  138,  216;  in 

England,  53 
Barrell,  Joseph,  271 
Bartram,  John,  280 
Basement,  43,  53,  154,  190  note,  199,  200,  20s,  204, 

205,  206,  223 
Bays,  octagonal,  164,  165,  169,  172;  segmental,  163, 

168-169,  203;  semicircular,  163 


303 


INDEX 


Bean,  St.  Clair,  271 

Bel  Hage,  157-158 

Belknap,  Jeremy,  24,  82,  88 

Belt  courses,  92,  200 

Benjamin,  Asher,   156,  239,  252;  publications,  151, 

205,  208,  213,  226,  228,  230,  232,  234,  237,  243, 

248,  252,  259 
Benson,  William,  54 
Bentley,  William,  28,  136 
Bergen  house.  Long  Island,  xviii 
Bernard,  Sir  Francis,  55,  62;  house  of,  82 
Berry  Hill,  Virginia,  180,  182-183,  189,  266 
Beverly,  Massachusetts,  Balch  house,  13 

William  Browne  house,  71,  97,  266 

Parsonage,  14 
Biddle,  Nicholas,  181-182,  265 
Bingham.  William,  280 
Birch,  William,  engravings,  199,  210,  282 
Birmingham,  Town  Hall,  146 
Blackford  house,  Fairfax  County,  Virginia,  257 
Blake,  Mrs.  Edward,  269 
Blinds,  108-109 
Block,  houses  in,  196-199 

Bluom,  Joannes,  "Quinque  columnarum  .  .  .,"  57 
Boardman,  Capt.,  284 
Boardman,  William,  289 
Bolection  mouldings,  50,  117,  122 
Bond  Castle,  Maryland,  32,  J4 
Bond,  in  brickwork,  39,  42-43 
Books,  influence  of,  56-60,  62,  112,  150,  186-187 
Booth,  Thomas  B.,  284 
Boston,  88,  190,  204,  222;  Common,  197;  first  frame 

houses,  10,  23;  fort  on  Castle  Island,  36;  houses 

after  1679,  24;  houses  after  171 1,  82 

Thomas  Amory  (Ticknor)  house,   197,  20^,  213- 
214,  233,  267 

Henry   Bridgham   house   ("Juliens"),   16,   18,   iq. 
20,  21,  26,  267 

Bulfinch  house,  155,  203 

Clark   (Frankland)    house,   82,   83,   90,    118,    132, 

134.  136 
Coddington  house,  40 
Colonnade  Row,  197,  267 

John  Singleton  Copley  house,  98-99,  131,  267 
Edward  Everett  house,  170,  203 
Fancuil  house,  82 

"Old  Feather  Store,"  16,  20,  21,  24,  267 
Foster  (Hutchinson)  house,  42,  62,  6j,  65,  82,  92, 

267 
Franklin  Crescent,   153,  igo,   196,   199,  20i,  203, 

205,  218,  226,  268 
Hancock  house,  xvii,  59,  65,  66,  70,  75,^^76,  Sj,  89, 

go,  92,  93,  loi,  104,  106,  loS,  109,  no,  113,  114, 

116,  118,  125,  128,  129,  130,  132,  133,  268 
Harris  house,  190,  268 
Jonathan  Mason  house,   158,  161,  165,  192,  201, 

203,  238 
Harrison  Gray  Otis   house.    Beacon   Street,   148, 

154.  15s.  158,  170-  207,  213-214,  221,  269 


Harrison  Gray  Otis  house,  Cambridge  Street,  208, 
243,  249^  250,  257,  268 

Harrison  Gray  Otis  house.  Mount  Vernon  Street, 
157,  202,  203,  205,  268 

Nos.  I  to  4  Park  Street,  158,  igi,  197,  199,  205, 
233,  269 

Parkman  houses,  Bowdoin  Square,  153,  201,  205, 
206,  269 

Prescott  house,  170,  203 

Province  House,  see  Peter  Sergeant  House 

David  Sears  house.  Beacon  Street,   153,  155,  156, 
IS7.  167,  169,  194,  201,  238,  239,  269 

Peter  Sergeant  house,  42,  43,  44,  4^,  46,  50,  70, 
75,  82,  86,  97,  269-270 

House  at  Summer  and  Arch  Streets,  208 

Williams  house,  241,  252 

John  Winthrop  houses,  10 

See  also  Charlestown;  Dorchester;  Jamaica  Plain; 
Roxbury;  and  Watertown 
Boughton  House,  Northamptonshire,  131 
Brackets,  21 

Bradford,  William,  6,  12 
Brady,  J.  R.,  184,  189 
Braintree,  Quinc\'  house,  106 
Brandford,  William,  270 
Brandon,  Virginia,  131 
Braxton,  Carter,  272 
Bremo,  Virginia,  185,  189-190 
Brewton,  Miles,  270 
Brick,  53;  bond  of,  67;  chimneys,  26,  39;  houses  of, 

39-50,  152,  153;  importation  of,  38-39;  moulded, 

67;  size  of,  39;  sun-dried,  21-22 
Bricklayers,  37 
Brickmaking,  37-38 
Bridgham,  Henry,  267 
Broughton,  Thomas,  277 
Brown,  Albert  F.,  xix 
Brown,  John,  283 
Browne,  William,  266 
Browne,  William  H.,  views,  38 
Bruce,  James  Coles,  182-183,  266 
Bruce,  P.  A.,  views,  7  note ;  38 
Buffet,  69 

"The  Builder's  Magazine,"  209 
Bulfinch,  Charles,  146,  153,  155,  157,  15S,  160,  164, 

165,  166,  167,  169,  170,  176,  177,  186,  190,  191,  192, 

196,  197,  199,  201,  202,  203,  204,  205,  206,  207,  208, 

211,  212,  214,  215,  216,  217,  218,  221,  224,  226,  230, 

232,  233,  234,  236,  237,  241,  243,  248,  249,  257,  265, 

268,  269,  271,  280,  284,  285,  290 
Bullock,  W.,  26 

Burlington,  Lord,  54,  58,  112,  204 
Burnet,  Mary,  266 
Burwell,  Abigail,  272 
Burwell,  Carter,  270 
Burwell,  Lewis,  272 

Bury  St.  Edmunds,  "Cupola  House,"  92 
Butler,  Houghton,  271 
Butler's  pantry,  156 


304 


INDEX 


Byfield,  Massachusetts,  Duminer  house,  68,  86,  104 

note 
Byrd,  William,  291 

Cambridge,  Massachusetts,  184;  first  frame  houses, 

10 

Apthorp  house,  94,  97,  loi,  270 

Thomas  Dudley  house,  29-30 

John  Vassal!  (Longfellow)  house,  70,  75,  75,  88,  89, 
94,  q6,  97,  99,  loi,  106,  108,  no,  117,  119,  122, 
129,  270 
Campbell,  Colin,  "Vitruvius  Hritannicus,"  58,  150, 

159,  161 
Capitals,  Corinthian,  65,  113;  Ionic,  1 10 
Carleton  St.  Peters,  Norfolk,  45 
Carlisle,  Pennsylvania,  Beltzhoover  house,  258 
Carpenter,  Samuel,  282 
Carrington,  Edward,  266 
Carroll,  Charles,  274 
Carstairs,  Thomas,  193,  198,  281 
Carter,  Elias,  188,  292 
Carter's  Creek,  see  Fairfield 
Carter's  Grove,  Virginia,  55,  67,  74,  76,  79,  So,  Si,  83, 

86,  loi,  104,  117,  iiS,  III,  122,  126,  128,  130,  270 
Cartouches,  112 

Carving,  S3.  65,  92,  120,  127,  128,  216,  234,  258 
Cary,  Henry,  265 
"Cat  and  clay,"  26 
"Cat  and  daub,"  21 
"Caves,"  S-6 
Ceilings,   132-134,   139,  239,  247-248;  centrepieces, 

239,  247-248;  coved,  83;  vaulted,  238-239 
Cement,  cast,  248 
Centennial  Exposition,  xviii 
Central  balance,  160,  174-178 
Chamfers,  21 

Chandler,  J.  E.,  views  on  overhang,  21 
Chapel,  Caleb  M.,  289 
Charleston,  South  Carolina,  68,  69,  115,  157,  217 

William  Brandford  (Horry)  house,  1 20,  124,  270 

Miles  Brewton  (Pringle)  house,  67,  yj,  83,  88,  89, 
91,  99-100,  lOi,  102,  108,  III,  115,  117,  120,  123, 
124,  128,  129,  130,  133,  136,  138,  139,  270 

Colonel  Robert  Brewton's  house,  67,  72,  82,  92,  270 

George  Eveleigh  house,  91,  119,  270 

Wilson  Glover  house  (Charleston  Club),  222,  270 

Huger  house,  133 

Ralph  Izard  house.  Broad  Street,  loi,  270 

Joseph  Manigault  house,  170,  222,  237 

Middleton-Pinckney  house,  170,  271 

Charles  Pinckney  house,  Colleton  Square,  69,  85, 
86,  94,  95,  96,  106,  108,  122,  271 

Robert  Pringle  house,  72 

Radcliffe  (King)  house,  200,  337,  243,  247,  271 

Reed  house,  138 

Rhett  house,  136 

Nathaniel  Russell  house,  l6y,  168,  206,  209,  215, 
^ii,  237,  244,  247,  271 

John  Stuart  house,  64,  117,  123,  124,  271 


Charlestown,  Massachusetts,  first  frame  houses,  10; 
first  houses,  6 
Joseph  Barrell  house,  160,  164,  165,  166,  167,  186, 

192,  205,  212,  213,  221,  234,  226,  232,  234,   236, 
240,  241,   242,   245,  248,  253,   271,  290 

fhonias  Russell  house,  166,  167,  236 
Cherokee  houses,  7-8 
Chew,  Benjamin,  273 
Child,  Mr.,  282 
Chimney-caps,  67,  109 
Chimneypieces,  50,  58,  112,  113,  114,  122-128,  133, 

134-136,  239,  248-252,  255,  257,  258;  marble,  248 
Chimneys,  6,  10,  11-12,  13,  16,  25-27,  32,  34,  39,  46- 

47,  50,  72,  84,  89,  109-110,  177 
Chinese  influence,  138 
Chinese  lattice,  no,  131,  234 
Chippendale  influence,  138 
Chiswick,  Burlington's  villa,  161 
Christ  Church,  Lancaster  County,  Virginia,  67 
Churches,  67,  159,  175,  176 
Churchill,  Judith,  290 
Circular  houses,  177-178;  rooms,  160,  162,  163-164, 

165,  170,  172,  175,  178,  235 
Circulation,  153,  155 
Clapboards,  7,  13,  22-23 
Classic  revival,  xvii,   145-146,   151,   158,   160,   178- 

189,    190,    218,    224,    259,    260.      See   also   Greek 

forms 
Clay,  Henry,  266 

Clay,  21-22,  26,  52;  mortar,  35;  plaster,  30 
Cleveland,  H.  W.  S.,  xvii,  184-185,  259 
Cliff"ord  Chambers,  Warwickshire,  71 
Coade's  manufactory,  248 
Cocke,  John  Hartwell,  190 

Cocumscussuc,  Rhode  Island,  Smith  house,  271 
Coleman,  William,  282 

Coleshill,  Berkshire,  46,  54,  70,  82,  86,  88,  90,  91 
Colonial  houses,  3-141 

Colonnades,  81,  165,  168,  172,  189-190,  194 
Colonnettes,  250,  252 
Colton,  Samuel,  275 
Columns,  47,  77,  97,  99,  104,  III,  119,  122,  127,  128, 

139,  159,  161,  162,  163,  180-182,  184,  185,  186,  187, 

188,  199,  200-228,  241,  250;  coupled,  221;  engaged, 

203,  211,  218,  221,  242,  250 
Composition  ornament,  243,  248,  254-258 
Concord,  Michigan,  St.  Clair  Bean  house,  271 
Conical  huts,  4 

Connecticut,  types  of  house,  32 
Connecticut  Valley,  63,  no 
Consoles,  53,  103-104,  112,  128,  138,  139,  214,  231, 

250 
Cooper,  James  Femmore,  194 
Copley,  John  Singleton,  98-99,  222,  223,  267 
Cornices,  46,  50,  55,  58,  68,  72,  92,  107,  112,  120,  122, 

124,   134,   209,   213,   215,   229-232,   239,   242-246, 

252;  brick,  67;  cove,  58,  245;  modillion,  46,  50,  55, 

72,  92;  window,  107 
Corridors,  155,  156,  166 


305 


INDEX 


Corwin,  Jonathan,  285 

Craig,  John,  265 

Craigie,  Andrew,  270 

Cramond,  William,  282 

Cratchets,  4-5 

Creek  houses,  8 

Crenshaw,  Lewis  D.,  283 

Croton-on-Hudson,    Van    Cortlandt    manor-house, 

"4 

Crunden,  John,  "Convenient  and  Ornamental  Archi- 
tecture," 158,  164 

Cupboards,  81,  119 

Cupolas,  91-92,  194-195,  238 

Curb  roofs,  see  Roofs,  gambrel 

Cust,  Sir  Edwin,  192 

Custis,  George  Washington  Parke,  266 

Dado,  115,  132,  240,  241 
Dale,  Sir  Thomas,  9 
Dankers,  Jasper,  23 

Danvers,    Massachusetts,   Hooper   house    (the   Lin- 
dens), 97,  pS,  248 

Oak  Hill,  215,  221,  252,  257 
Daubing,  6,  7,  13,  20,  23,  24,  30 
Davenport,  John,  12  note 
Davenport,  Nathaniel,  285 
Davis,  Alexander  Jackson,  184,  228  note,  2? 8,  240, 

278 
Davis,  Jonathan,  269 
Davys,  John,  13 
Decatur,  Stephen,  290 
Deck  roof,  88-89 
Dedham,  Massachusetts,  Fairbanks  house,   22,  35; 

meeting  house,  30 
Deerfield,  Massachusetts,  John  Sheldon  ("Indian") 

house,  28,  271-272 

John  Williams  house,  18,  28,  loi,  104,  272 
Delaware  settlements,  8,  27 
Dentils,  231,  240,  243 
Denton,  Ebenezer,  290 
Derby,  Anstis,  288 
Derby,  Elias  Hasket,  285,  288 
Derby,  Ezekiel  Hersey,  285 
Desgodetz,     Antoine,     "Les     edifices     antiques     de 

Rome,"  151 
Devol  &  Granger,  127 
Dexter,  Michigan,  Dexter  house,  182,  185-186,  220, 

272 
Dexter,  Samuel,  267 
Dexter,  Samuel,  the  younger,  272 
Domes,  160,  161,  162,  174,  175,  192,  194-195,  237- 

238 
Doors,  28-29 
Doorways,  47-48,  55,  57,  58,  92,  101-104,  112,  119- 

120,  200,  209,  216-220,  239,  252 
Dorchester,  Massachusetts,  Swan   house,    156,    162, 

i6j,  165,  168,  1S6,  192,  234,  238 
Dormers,  18-19,  32,  46,  90-91 
Dow,  George  Francis,  views,  28 


Downing,  Andrew  Jackson,  260 

Drawings,  architectural,  61-62,  152 

Drayton,  John,  272 

Drayton  Hall,  South  Carolina,  65,  88,  89,  99,   107, 

272 
Dra3'ton  tombs,  281 
Dressing  rooms,  154,  155 
Drops,  19,  20 

Dublin,  Provost's  House,  205 
Dublin  Society,  164 
Dudley,  Thomas,  4,  10,  25,  29-30 
"Dutch  Colonial,"  195,  223 
Dutch  influence,  53 
Dyckman,  William,  279 

E  plan,  44,  46 

Eagles,  carved,  258 

Ears,  on  architrave,  49,  119,  120,  122,  1:3,  138,  248, 

252 
East  Anglia,  22,  24 

East  Jersey,  first  houses,  6-7;  tile  roofs,  44 
East  Windsor,  Connecticut,  Ebenezer  Grant  house, 

86,  loi,  104,  272 
Eaton,  Theophilus,  12  >iote 
Edgehill,  Virginia,  224,  230 
Edinburgh,  National  Monument,  146 
Eighteenth-century  houses,  53-141 
Elizabethan  survivals  in  America,  47,  71 
Ell,  7; 

Elliptical  rooms,  163,  164-168,  178.  235,  240,  247 
F.lsing  Cireen,  \  irgmia,  71,  272 
Embargo  of  1807,  258,  259 
Endecott,  John,  285 
English,  Philip,  285 
Entablatures,  96,  210,  211,  213,  218,  219,229-230, 

241,  246 
Epes,  Daniel,  286 
Ephrata,  Pennsylvania,  50-5/ 
Erie  Canal,  185 
Eveleigh,  George,  270 
Evelyn,  John,  writings,  57 

Fairfield  (Carter's  Creek),  Virginia,  42.  43.  44,  46, 

47,  70,  272 
Fanlights,  102,  217-218 
Farmington,  Connecticut,  Clark  house,  14 
Farmington,  Virginia,  172,  224 
Fawn,  John,  274 
Finns  in  America,  8 
Fireplaces,  see  Chimneypieces 
Fithian,  Philip,  quoted,  loi 
Fitzhugh,  William,  26 
Floors,  132 

Fluting,  216,  226,  248 
Forrester,  John,  286 
Fort  Elfsborg,  8 
Fowler,  Orson  Squire,  1 76 

Frame  houses,  63,  152,  153;  in  England,  9,  24 
Framing,  16,  21 


306 


INDEX 


Francini,  Alexandre,  "Livre  d'architecture,"  57 
Freart  de  Cliambray,  Roland,  "  Parallele,"  57 
Fredericksburg,  Virginia,  Kenmore,  76,  77  note,  86, 

122,  133-134-  135'  136,  137,  243 
French  influence,  112,  132-133,  138,  145,  146,  153, 

155,  157,  161-162,  164,  192,  254 
Friezes,  122,  124,  127,  128,  213,  215,  226,  229,  234, 

243,  248,  252,  256-257 
Frontier  conditions,  3,  7 

Gables,  16,  18,  20,  30-32,  44-46,  83-86,  189;  stepped, 

45 
Gabriel,  Jacques-Ange,  204 
Gambrel,  see  Roofs,  gambrel 
Gates,  Sir  Thomas,  9 
Georgetown,  see  Washington 
Georgia,  first  houses,  7;  temple  houses,  187 
"Georgian  Period,  The,"  xviu 
Georgian  style,  xx,  54 
Gerbier,  Sir  Balthazar,  writings,  57 
Germans  in  Pennsylvania,  23,  50 
Germantown,   Pennsylvania,  early  houses,  22  note; 

composition  ornaments,  256;  local  characteristics, 

62 

Cliveden,  ST'  64,  70,  74,  76,  86,  91,  94,  705,  106, 
109,  119,  129,  130,  273 

Johnson  house,  65,  86,  273 

Daniel  Pastorius  house,  64,  102,  273 

Stenton,  70,  "4,  76,  81,  SS,  89,  92,  loi,  102,  loj, 
104,  109,  119,  122,  125,  128,  131,  273 

Upsala,  219,  243,  258,  273 
Gibbons,  Grinling,  128 
Gibbs,  James,  150;  writings,  58,  78,  164 
Gladen,  Mr.,  271 
Glass,  27,  105-106 
Glover,  Wilson,  270 
Gore,  Christopher,  290 
Gorges,  Robert,  6 

Gothic  revival,  xvii,  138,  250,  259,  282 
Graeme  Park,  Horsham,   Pennsylvania,  64,  70,  72, 

82,  84,  85,  92,  loi,  102,  104,  106,  log,  iig,  120,  122, 

128,  130,  131,  136,  273 
Graining,  136 

Grass  Lake,  Michigan,  Smith  house,  228,  273 
Graves,  Thomas,  10 
Gray,  William,  286 
Greece,  travels  in,  182 
Greek  forms,  152,  177,  179,  181,  185,  186,  220,  227, 

230.  235'  240-  -46,  259,  260 
Greek  Independence,  War  of,  183-185 
Greek  revival,  see  Classic  revival;  and  Greek  forms 
Greenfield,  Massachusetts,  Hollister  house,  156,  239 
Greenwich,  the  Queen's  House,  90 
Gregson,  Thomas,  12  note 
Guilford,  Connecticut,  Henry  Whitfield  house,  37, 

273 
Gunston  Hall,  \'irginia,  73.  75,  76,  81,  98,  loi,  104, 

106,  115,  119,  120,  121,  274 
Guttae,  232,  252 


H  plan,  44,  70-71,  86 

Hackensack,  New  Jersey,  Zabriskie  (Board)  house, 

223,  274 
Hadfield,  George,  180,  266 
Halfpenny,  William,  publications,  60 
Half  timber,  23-24 
Hallet  (Hellot),  Andrew,  12 
Hallet,  Stephen,  146 
Halls,  16,  69,  71,  77,  78,  155,  156 
Hallways,  44,  70,  72,  75 
Hamilton,  Alexander,  218,  258,  279 
Hamilton,  Dr.  Alexander,  97  note 
Hamilton,  Andrew,  282 
Hamilton,  William,  282 
Hamor,  Ralph,  9,  39 
Hampton,  Maryland,  194 
Hampton  Court,  45 
Hancock,  Thomas,  268 
Hardware,  113,  114 
Harrison,  Peter,  55,  62,  63 
Hartford,  Connecticut,  13-14,  26,  32  note,  37 
Harvey,  George,  289 
Harvey,  Sir  John,  8 
Hatfield  House,  Hertfordshire,  56 
Haverhill,  Massachusetts,  25 

"Eagle  house,"  252,  234,  259,  261 
Hawks,  John,  55,  62,  277 
Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  xvii 
Henrico,  Virginia,  9,  39 
Hermitage,  The,  Tennessee,  274 
Hessians,  133,  137 
Higginson,  Francis,  10,  27,  35,  37 
Hoadley,  David,  276 

Hoban,  James,  146,  150,  159,  164,  200,  291 
Holhman,  136 
Homewood,  Maryland,  189,  201,  210,  219,  226,  231, 

238,  240,  243,  250,  252,  274 
Hood,  door,  104 
Hooper,  Benjamin,  286 
Hope  Lodge,  Pennsylvania,  91  note 
Hospital,  slave,  190 
Hubbard,  William,  12 
Hume,  William  C,  274 
Hunt,  Lewis,  287 
Hutchinson,  Thomas,  267 

lardella,  Guiseppe,  234,  281 

Importation  of  brick,  38-39;  of  interior  finish,  112- 

113 
Indians,  3,  7-8 
Innocent,  C.  F.,  views  on  English  building,  3,  7,  9, 

22,  24,  26,  42 
Interiors,  16,  29-30,  50,  111-138,  234- 261 
Interlaces,  233-234,  240,  253-254,  258-259 
Ipswich,  Massachusetts,  14,  25 

Symonds  house,  II-12,  22,  23 

John  Whipple  house,  13,  14,  16,  17,  18,  19,  20,  28, 

2747275 
Whittingham  house,  14 


307 


INDEX 


Iroquois  long-house,  7-8 

Irving,  Wasiiington,  259,  289 

Isham,  N.  M.,  xix,  views,  7  note,  14  and  note,  20,  21, 

22,  23,  25,  26,  30,  32,  34,  38,  50 
Ives,  Tiiomas,  287 
Izard,  Ralph,  270 

Jacobean  survivals  in  America,  45,  71,  72 

Jamaica     Plain,     Massachusetts,     Francis     Bernard 

house,  82 
James,  John,  55 
Jamestown,  Virginia,  4,  9-10,  37,  40,  42,  44,  47 

"Country  House"  and  Philip  Ludwell  house,  j/, 

41.  43;  27s 

Jansen,  Dirck,  273 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  xvii,  36,  62,  79,  no,  113,  138,  146, 
150,  152,  154,  155,  156,  159,  161,  162,  167,  168,  169, 
171,  172,  173,  174,  17s,  176,  177,  178,  179-180,  187, 
189,  190,  194,  220,  224,  225,  227,  230,  231,  234,  242, 
243,  246,  248,  260,  265,  276,  292;  books  owned,  151 
note,  152 

Jersey  City,  Van  Vorst  house,  188 

Jetties,  see  Overhang 

Johnson,  Edward,  5,  8,  36,  40,  44 

Johnson,  John,  Jr.,  273 

Johnson,  Thomas,  268 

Johnson,  Thomas,  publications,  132 

Jones,  Inigo,  33,  42,  53,  54,  58,  86,  124,  127,  174,  176, 
192.  267 
"Designs  of,"  see  Kent,  William,  publications 

Josselyn,  John,  36 

Justis,  Peter,  278 

Kalm,  Peter,  8,  136 

Kedleston,  Derbyshire,  162 

Keith,  William,  72,  273 

Kemp,  Richard,  40 

Kent,  24 

Kent,  William,  publications,  58,  124,  127,  174,  176 

note,  194 
Kentucky,  i8g 

Key-blocks,  103,  104,  125,  214,  215 
Kirk,  John,  72,  273 
Kitchens,  16,  69,  70,  154,  156 
Knox,  Henry,  290 


Lafever,  Minard,  "Modern  Builder's  Guide," 
188,  189,  227,  229 

Lancaster,  Massachusetts,  25 

Lancaster,  Pennsylvania,  Diller  house,  257 

Langdon,  John,  283 

Langiey,  Batty,  publications,  60,  84  note,  134, 
141  note,  195  note 

Larkin,  Samuel,  283 

Lath,  21,  30 

Latrobe,  Benjamin  Henry,  146,  149,  150,  151, 
155,  170,  174,  178,  180,  182,  198,  207,  211, 
220,  221,  224,  225,  227,  228,  229,  230,  236, 
239'  259,  266,  280,  281,  282,  290,  291 


187, 


136, 


153. 
212, 
238, 


Lattice,  Chinese,  no,  131,  234 

Lawrie,  Gaweii,  6 

Leadbeater,  Mr.,  277 

Leaded  glass,  27,  217 

"Leah  and  Rachel,"  quoted,  27,  30 

Lean-to,  17-18,  32,  50 

Lechford,  Thomas,  quoted,  13,  17 

Lee,  Robert  E.,  266 

Le  Muet,  Pierre,  "Maniere  de  bien  bastir,"  57,  58 

L'Enfant,  Pierre  Charles,  146,  168,  169 

Leoni,  Giacomo,  translation  of  Palladio,  58,  174 

Le  Vau,  Louis,  162 

Lewis,  Eleanor  Parke,  292 

Lewis,  Fielding,  133 

Lidgett,  Charles,  275 

Lime,  21,  24,  30,  35-37 

Limestone,  36 

Lintels,  214,  215 

Listen,  Robert,  175,  178 

Little  Harbor,  see  Portsmouth 

Livermore,  Edward  St.  Loe,  278 

Livingston,  Catherine,  265 

Lloyd,  Edward,  265 

Locke,  "Designs,"  132 

Log-houses,  3,  7-8,  50 

Logan,  James,  49,  273 

Loggias,  S3,  78,  97 

Lomazzo,  Giovanni  Paolo,  writings,  57 

London,  Great  Fire,  9,  33,  54 

Banqueting  House,  Whitehall,  33,  90 

Manchester  House,  208,  2II 

New  River  Water  Company,  139 

General  Wade's  house,  204,  205 

Sir  Watkin  Wynn's  house,  204,  226 
Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  xvii 
Longmeadow,  Massachusetts,  Samuel  Colton  house, 

104,  275 
Lord,  David,  285 
Louis  XIV,  160 

Louis  XV  influence,  112,  145,  192 
Louis  XVI  influence,  254 
Lowell,  Francis  Cabot,  269 
Lower  Yonkers,  see  New  ^'ork  City 
Lucome  windows,  12,  18-19,  32,  46 
Lunettes,  see  Windows,  semicircular 

McComb,  John,   150,   157,   158,   163-164,   166,  167, 

178,  194,  198,  204,  205,  216,  218,  225,  230,  279 
Mclntire,  Samuel,  140,  141,  150,  153,  157,  166,  167, 

200,  20I,  203,  204,  205,  206,  217,  220,  224,  226, 
227,  230,  236,  239,  241,  247,  248,  253,  256,  257, 
258,   265,    284,    285,    288,    290 

McPhedris,  Archibald,  283 

Macpherson,  John,  281 

Madison,  James,  225,  276 

Madison,  William,  169 

Major,  Thomas,  "Ruins  of  Paestum,"  152 

Malton,  Thomas,  205 

Mamgault,  Gabriel,  170 


308 


INDEX 


Mansart,  Fran90is,  45 

Manstield,  Paul,  287 

Mantel-shelf,  50,  122,  248-258.  Sre  also  Chimney- 
pieces 

Marble,  113,  125-128,  153,  236,  248,  249 

Marblehead,  Massachusetts,  Jeremiah  Lee  house, 
75,  82,  92,  gj,  97,  115,  116,  117,  130,  121,  122, 
123,  124,  128,  129,  131,  275 

Marlsling,  136 

Markham,  Gervase,  "The  English  Husbandman," 
44  note 

Markham,  Thomas,  281 

Markoe,  John,  280 

Marly-le-Roi,  160 

Marmion,  Virginia,  116,  118,  137,  138 

Marshall,  John,  283 

Mason,  George,  274 

Massachusetts  Bay  Colony,  first  houses,  5,  8;  type 
of  frame  house,  32 

Mather,  Increase,  25 

Mauclerc,   Julien,    "Premier    livre    d'architecture," 

57 
Medford,  Massachusetts,  Peter  Tufts  house,  21,  41, 

44.  45>  46,  47,  70,  275 

Usher  (Royall)  house,  jp,  41,  43,  47,  68,  75,  82, 
Sg,  92,  93.  94.  96,  97.  104.  106,  108,  no,  139- 
140,  201,  275-276 
Mediaeval  survivals  in  America,  14,  46,  50-52 
Medway,  South  Carolina,  45  note 
Mereworth  Castle,  Kent,  161 
Metropolitan  Museum,  60,  104,  107,  116,  118,  136, 

252,  254,  258,  259,  261 
Mezzanines,  192,  224 
Michelangelo,  192 
Michigan,  177,  185-186,  188,  229 
Middleton,  Frances,  271 
Middletown,  Connecticut,  104 

Russel  house,  228  note,  276 
Mill  Grove,  Pennsylvania,  65,  276 
Millar,  Donald,  views,  22,  28,  39  note,  49 
Mills,  Robert,  146,  153,  169,  174,  176,  198,  212,  281, 

283 
Minitree,  David,  55,  270 
Mississippi,  187 

Modillions,  46,  50,  55,  72,  92,  232,  243,  252,  257 
Monrepos,  162 
Monticello,  Virginia,  62,  78,  79,  81,  83,   100,   106, 

107,  109,   no,  i/j,  114,  117,  120,  138,  155,  156, 

163,  jA>,  189,  190,  192,  194,  224,  238,  240,  242, 

243,  2j6,  276 
Montpellier,  Virginia,  218,  225,  226,  276 
More,  Ann,  288 

More,  William,  113,  125,  140,  268 
Morgan,  James,  276 
Morris,  Luke  Wistar,  281 
Morris,  Robert,  280-281 
Morris,  Robert,  publications,  60,  78,  162 
Morton,  Mrs.  Perez,  284 
Morton,  Thomas,  36 


Mount  Airy,  Virginia,  60,  62,  65,  yy,  78,  79,  So,  93, 
94,  106,  108,  141,  276 

Mount  Vernon,  Virginia,  xvii,  79,  So,  92,  93,  loo-ioi, 
122,  124,  125,  133,  134,  187,  194,  200,  225,  229, 
243.  245,  247,  248,  276 

Mo.\on,  Joseph,  "Mechanick  Exercises,"  55,  58,  67, 
130 

Mulberry,  The  ("Mulberry  Castle"),  South  Caro- 
lina, 67,  6q,  72,  loi,  102,  109,  114,  122,  277 

Mulliken,  Jonathan,  277 

Mullions,  211,  218,  227 

Munday,  Richard,  62,  63,  71,  72,  279 

Muses,  as  material  of  ornament,  256-257 

Mutules,  243 

Nantucket,  Massachusetts,  184 
Narragansett,  oldest  houses,  13 

Richard  Smith  house,  18 
Nashville,  Tennessee,  Belmont,  175 
Nevill,  Ralph,  views   on   weatherboarding  in   Eng- 
land, 24 
New  Albion,  27 
New  Amsterdam,  39 
New  Bedford,  Massachusetts,  184 

Parker  (Bennett)  house,  189 
Newbern,  North  Carolina,  Tryon's   Palace,  55,  62, 

79,  82,  90,  94,  113-114,  126-128,  277 
Newbury,  Massachusetts,  36 

(Spencer)  Pierce  house,  277 
Newburyport,     Massachusetts,     Tristram     Dalton 

house,  loi  note,  118 

Jonathan  Mulliken  (Cutler-Bartlett)  house,  277 

Enoch  Thurston  (Lunt-Shepard)  house,  278 

Benaiah  Titcomb  house,  16,  30,  32,  278 
Newcastle,  Delaware,  Kensey  Johns  house,  278 

George  Read  II  house,  210,  219,  278 
Newels,  30,  130-13 1 
New  Haven  Colony,  first  houses,  12 
New  Haven,  Connecticut,  25,  37,  38,  204 

Governor  Eaton  house,  12  note,  278 

James  Hillhouse,  Jr.,  house  (Sachem's  Wood),  278 

A.  N.  Skinner  house,  278 
"New  Life  of  Virginia,"  quoted,  39 
New  London,  Connecticut,  parsonage,  14,  26 

John  Winthrop,  Jr.,  house,  37 
New  Netherlands,  38-39 
Newport,  Rhode  Island,  oldest  houses,  13 

Cozzens  (Dudley  or  Bull)  house,  82,  94 

Daniel  Ayrault  house,  69,  -/,  72,  102,  104,  106, 
122,  279 

Ninyon  Challoner  house,  36,  74,  279 

74  Prospect  Street,  257 
New  Sweden,  8,  38 
New  York,  98,  136,  190,  217,  222-223 

Apthorpe  house,  96,  97 

Colonnade  Row  (LaGrange  Terrace),  153,  198,  279 

Dyckman  house,  1S8,  195,  223,  279 

Government  House,  757,  158,  163,  194,  225,  230, 
279 


309 


INDEX 


The  Grange,  218,  221,  279 

Jefferson  house,  155 

Roger  Morris  (Jumel)  house,  81,  86,  89,  91,  92,  loi, 
102,  106,  no.  III,  129,  130,  225,  279 

John  C.  Stevens  house,  2jS,  240,  242 

Van  Cortlandt  house,  32,  65,  72,  84,  86,  89,  106, 
108,  109,  114,  117,  119,  121,  122,  128,  130,  280 
Niches,  119.  163,  238,  239 
Nimes,  Maison  Carree,  179 
Nomini  Hall,  Virginia,  79,  100 
Nordhoff,  New  Jersey,  Vreeland  house,  229 
Norfolk,  Virginia,  Barton  Myers  house,  256 
Norman,  John,  14;  publications,  141 
Northampton,  Massachusetts,  25 

Joseph  Bowers  house,  280 
Norton,  George,  26 

Octagonal  houses,  175-177 

Octagonal  saloon,  78-79,  162 

Odessa,  Delaware,  Corbit  house,  69,  115,  117,  280 

Oley  Township,  Pennsylvania,  Moravian  school- 
house,  3  J 

Orders,  56-57,  103-104,  no,  175,  180,  185,  188,  189, 
199,  226-228,  241,  246;  colossal,  53,  94-95,  100- 
loi,  no;  superposed,  53,  99-100 

Orford,  New  Hampshire,  206 

Orne,  Timothy,  287 

Otis,  Harrison  Gray,  268,  291 

Outbuildings,  70,  78-81,  189-190 

Overhang,  18,  19-21,  34,  50 

Overmantel,  122-125,  134-136,  139,  248,  252 

Oxford,  Ashmolean  Museum,  130,  131 

Paestum,  "Basilica,"  188;  Great  temple,  181 

Page,  Mann,  284 

Pain,  William  and  James,  publications,  60,  84  7wte, 
150,189,  195  note,  232,  240,  247,  248,  252,  255,  258 

Paine,  James,  162;  "Plans  of  Noblemen  and  Gentle- 
men's Houses,"  155  iiotr- 

Painting,  136-137 

Palfre^■,  J.  G.,  views  on  log  iiouses,  7 

Palisades,  6-7 

Palladian  motive,  98 

Palladian  windows,  sff  Windows,  Palladian 

Palladio,  Andrea,  53,  54,  58,  75,  76,  78,  79,  100,  loi, 
no,  138,  151,  190,  192;  influence,  no,  ni,  150, 
161,  227 
Villa  Rotonda,  153,  160-161,  172,  174 

Palm  capital,  226 

Panelling,  30,  n4,  n5-n7,  201,  239-240 

Pantops,  Virgmia,  176 

Paper-hangmgs,  113,  116-117 

Parapets,  187 

Paris,  Bourse,  187 

Hotel  Moras  (Biron),  170 

Hotel  de  Salm,  162,  167,  190,  194 

Hotel  de  Thelusson,  162,  190 

Jefferson's  house  (Hotel  de  Langeac),  167 


Louvre,  192 

Madeleine,  146 

Place  de  la  Concorde,  204 
Parke,  Daniel,  32 
Parkman,  Deliverance,  287 
Parkman,  Samuel,  269 
Parlor,  16,  69 
Parris,  Alexander,  150,  155,  156,  167,  169,  194.  213, 

217,  234,  237,  269,  283 
Pastorius,  Daniel,  273 
Pastorius,  Sarah,  273 
Paterje,  226 
Pavilions,  53,  65,  93-94,  96,  97,  170,  174,  IQO,  208, 

225 
Pedestals,  96,  99-100 
Pediments,  46,  55,  86,  90,  104,   107,  120,   1 26,   158, 

159,  180,  183,  194,  216,  218,  221;  broken,  53,  58, 

120,  123,  138,  248;  scroll,  53,  58,  123.  138,  139,  216 
Pelham,  Henry,  98 
Pendentives,  239 
Pendills,  19,  20 
Penn,  John,  247,  280,  282 
Penn,  William,  44,  281,  282 
Pennsbury  House,  Pennsylvania,  44 
Peristyle,' 182,  185,  188 
Philadelphia,  38,  68,  187,  190;  first  shelters,  5 

Bank  of  Pennsylvania,  179 

Bank  of  the  United  States,  146,  182 

Burd  house,  206,  20/,  210,  2n,  280 

Charles  Read  house  (London  Coffee  House),  85,  86 

1 109  Walnut  Street,  212,  21  j 

Girard  College,  228 

Houses  on  Ninth  Street,  198,  281 

John  Bartram  house,  64,  67,  280 

John  Reynolds  (Morris)  house,  140,  141,  215,  231, 
253,  259,  281 

Joshua  Carpenter  house,  85,  86 

Lansdowne,  Fairmount  Park,  81,  88,  89,  100,  no, 
280 

Letitia  house,  see  William  Penn  house 

Library  Company,  152 

The  Lilacs,  257 

Liston  house,  lyj,  178 

Markoe  house,  Ijl,  156,  212,  236,  238,  280 

Mount  Pleasant,  6j,  68,  77,  78,  79,  So,  86,  89,  91, 
94,  loi,  106,  108,  no,  119,  120,  122,  123,  129, 
141,  281 

President's  house,  174,  ipp,  203,  210,  211,  230,  281 

Robert  Morris  house,  153,  16S,  170,  234,  280-281 

Sansom's  Buildings,  ipj,  198,  219,  281-282 

Sedgley,  259,  282 

The  "Slate  House,"  42,  43,  44,  46,  47,  49,  70,  282 

Solitude,  153,  212,  221,  243,  344,  247,  248,  282 

Vernon,  256,  257 

Wain  house,  282 

Whitby  Hall,  64,  72,  86,  loi,  103,  106,  ng.  123, 
125,  129,  282 

William  Bingham  house,  158,  201,  208,  210,  216, 
217,  219,  236,  280 


;io 


INDEX 


William  Penn  ("Letitia")  house,  41,  43,  44,  46,  47, 
4S,  4Q,  50,  86,  122,  281 

Woodford,  72,  86,  89,  loi,  106,  108,  no,  115,  i2g, 
130,  282 

The  Woodlands,  100,  14^,  154,  155,  163,  164,  174, 
ig6,  201,  203,  210,  211,  213,  214,  217,  22 j,  226, 
236,  238,  242,  252,  253,  255,  282 

See  also  Germantown 
Piazzas,  98-99,  222-223 
Pickering,  John,  287 
Pickering,  Timothy,  28 
Pickman,  Benjamin,  287 
Pickman,  Benjamm,  Jr.,  288 
Pickman,  Dudley  L.,  288 
Pierce,  Daniel,  277 
Pilasters,  55,  77,  92,  93,  96-97,  103,  no,  113,  118, 

120,  121,  122,  124,  128,  160,  201-204,  205,  210,  211, 

218,  219,  220,  226,  241,  248,  250,  252 
Pillnitz,  "English  Pavilion,"  177 
Pinckney,  Thomas,  271 
Pittsburg,  arsenal,  221,  238 
Planceer,  243,  244 

Plans,  16-18,  43-44,  58,  60,  70-81,  153-190,  198-199 
Plaster,  interior,  30,  132-136;  exterior,  24,  52,  68,  153 
Plaw,  John,  "Rural  Architecture,"  177 
Plymouth    Colony,    brickmaking,    37;    first    houses, 

6,  7;   frame  houses,  lo,  32;  v.'indows,  27 
Pompeian  influence,  in,  145,  152,  234 

See  also  Adam,  Robert 
Poplar  Forest,  Virginia,  155,  169,  173,  176,  178,  190, 

224,  230 
Porch,  interior,  16;  projecting,  18,  47,  51 
Porch  chamber,  18,  30 
Port  Folio,  182 
Porticos,  47,  67,  93,  97-101,  158,  160,  161,  163,  174, 

176,  180-186,  187,  189,  190,  220-225,  226,  227,  229; 

colossal,  loo-ioi,  224-225;  semicircular,  221,  222; 

superposed,  99-100,  224 
Portland,  Maine,  155,  156,  204 

Richard  Hunnewell  (Shepley)  house,  ijo.  213,  217, 
220,  234,  239,  283 
Portsmouth,   New  Hampshire,   Haven   house,   252, 

-'5J.  258 
Langdon  house,  203,  215,  220-221,  222,  259,  283 
Larkin  (Henry  Ladd)   house,  206,  207,  20S,  210, 

211,  283 
McPhedris  (Warner)  house,  82,  S3,  84,  89,  90,  104, 

109,  no,  117,  122,  128,  130,  131,  283 
Mofl^at  (Ladd)  house,  77  note 
Pierce  house,  204 
Richter  house,  172 
Wentworth  house  at  Little  Harbor,  124-125,  126, 

"Post-Colonial"  work,  141,  259 

Price,   Francis,  "British   Carpenter,"   84,    n/,    121, 

195  note 
Primatt,  Stephen,  "City  and  Country  Purchaser  and 

Builder,"  ^4,  58,  71 
Primitive  dwellings,  3-9 


Providence,  Rhode  Island,  36,  175 

John  Brown  house,  174,  210,  220,  259,  283 
Joseph  Brown  house,  140-141 
Joseph  Nightingale  house,  174,  200 

Providence  Plantation,  oldest  houses,  13 

Quoins,  53,  55,  92-93,  200 

Radclifl^e,  Thomas,  271 

Ramsay,  S.  C,  views,  60-61 

Randolph,  Cornelia  Jefferson,  172 

Randolph,  Thomas,  290 

Rasieres,  Isaak  de,  6 

Raynerd,  Daniel,  243,  245,  247,  250 

R'eedings,  240 

Regensburg,  Walhalla,  146 

Reliefs,  234,  254-258,  289 

Republican  houses,  145-261 

Reynolds,  John,  281 

Rhode  Lsland,  types  of  house,  32 

Richards,  Godfrey,  edition  of  Palladio,  104  note,  192 

Richards,  James,  18 

Richardson,  George,  "Original  Designs,"  155  note    , 

Richmond,  Virginia,  Capitol,  146,  160,  179 

Brockenbrough  house,  156,  212,  283 

Proposed  Governor's  house,  1^6,  161,  174 

Hancock  (Caskie)  house,  172 

McRae  house,  172 

Marshall  house,  283 

Wickham   house   (Valentine  Museuiji),    169,    174, 
212,  221,  237,  238,  283 
Rieff,  Joseph,  274 
Rix,  William,  13,  26 
Robinson,  John,  279 

Rocaille,  ill,  n7,  124,  132,  133,  136,  138,  139,  254 
Rock  Hall,  Virginia,  9 

Rococo,  60,  134,  162;  influence,  132-133,  138,234,241 
Romanticism,  259 
Rome,  Capitol,  192 
Roofs,   16,   24-25,  44-46,   52,   83-92,   187,   102-195; 

flat,  192-194;  gambrel,  curb,  or  mansard,  45-46, 

SO,  82,  83-85,  89,  195;  hip,  46,  50,  54,  86-88,  91; 

jerkin  head,  85-86;  terrace,  89-90 
Rooms,  shape  of,  60,  81,  160-178,  234,  235 
Rosettes,  247,  258 
Rosewell,  Virginia,  67,  70,  y6,  77,  86,  89,  93,  g4,  102, 

103,  104,  109,  128,  130,  131,  192,  284 
Rotunda  form,  145,  160-161,  174-175,  177-178,  192, 

194,  238,  260 
Rough-cast,  24 
Roxbury,   Massachusetts,   Eben  Crafts  house,   156, 

174,  19S,  203,  206,  212,  215,  223,  237,  239,  284 

Morton  (Taylor)  house,  156,  157,  165,  169,  174, 

11)7,   203,   212,   215,   221,   223,   226,   240,   284 

Shirley  Place,  88,  89,  90,  91,  92,  94,  95,  96,  97, 
103,  108,  no,  201,  284 
Royall,  Isaac,  275 
Russell,  Nathaniel,  271 
Rustication,  53,  92-93,  103,  104,  199-200 


311 


INDEX 


Sabine  Hall,  Virginia,  loo-ioi 

Salem,  Massachusetts,  xix,  218,  221,  252,  259;  brick 
houses,  152;  church  of  1639,  22;  first  houses,  10 
Assembly  House,  204 

Benjamin  Hooper  house,'  16,  17,  18,  20,  28,  286 
Benjamin   Pickman   house,   Essex  Street,   89,  90, 

gi,  93,  94,  no,  287-288 
Benjamin   Pickman   (Derby)   house,   Washington 

Street,  68,  82,  90,  92,  153,  203,  288 
Boardman  house,  284 
Bradstreet  house,  19,  49 
Daniel   Epes   ("Governor  Endecott")   house,  16, 

18,  20,  285-286 
Deliverance  Parkman  house,  16,  18,  26,  29,  287 
Dow  house,  157 
Dudley  L.   Pickman   (Shreve-Little)   house,   208- 

209,'  288 
Elias  Hasket  Derby  house,  156,  167,  189,  194,  201, 

203,  205,  211,  215,  217,  2i8,  224,  236,  240,  245, 

247,  256,  258 
Ezekiel  Hersey  Derby  house  (Maynes  Block),  155, 

201,  203,  205,  208,  215,  220,  237,  243,  247,  257, 

28s 
Felt  house,  157,  256 
John  Andrew  (SafFord)  house,  153,  211,  221,  229- 

230,  234,  243,  247,  252,  284^ 
John  Forrester  house  (Salem  Club),  207,  232,  252, 

286 
John  Gardner  (Pingree)  house,  156,  207,  2og,  221, 

243,  254 
John  Pickering  house,  14,  16,  17,  18,  26,  287 
John  Ward  house,  16,  17,  18,  20,  21,  22,  289 
Jonathan  Corwm  house,  16,  17,  18,  19,  20,  22,  26, 

27.  30,  32.  285 
Joseph  Hosmer  (Waters)  house,  286 
Joseph  Peabody  house,  2ji,  ijz 
Kimball  house,  252 

Lewis  Hunt  house,  16,  17,  18,  20,  26,  287 
Marston  house,  36,  65 
Narbonne  house,  14,  16,  20,  287 
Nathan  Read  house,  207,  217,  221,  248,  24Q 
Nathaniel  Silsbee  house,  210,  21J,  215,  233,  288 
Nichols  house,  37  Chestnut  Street,  287 
Peirce  (Nichols)   house,   IJQ,   141,    194,  igj,  201, 

215,  220,  2 jp,  241,  252,  254,  256,  257 
Philip  English  house,  16,  18,  20,  285 
Pickering  Dodge  (Shreve)   house,  211,  215,  2/rt, 

227,  285 
Registry  of  Deeds,  257,  258 
Samuel  Cook  (Oliver)  house,  200,  220,  233 
Timothy  Orne  house,  82,  88,  89,  93,  97,  no,  128, 

129,  287 
Tucker  (Rice)  house,  221,  226,  245 
1  urner  house  ("House  of  the  Seven  Gables"),  16, 

17,  18,  28,  288 
William  Browne  house,  24,  2j,  29 
William  Gray  house  (Essex  House),  221,  2jo,  231- 

232,  250,  257,  286 
"Witch  House,"  sc-e  Jonathan  Corwin  house 


Woman's  Bureau,  252 
Woodbridge  house,  136 

Salisbury,  Stephen,  292 

Salmon,  William,  "Palladio  Londinensis,"  84  7iote, 
195  note 

Salon,  78,  162,  167 

Saloon,  162-169,  192,  194,  238 

Sandstone  Township,  Michigan,  Chapel  house,  289 

Sandys,  George,  8 

San  Gallo,  Giuliano  da,  160 

Sans  Souci,  162 

Sansom,  William,  ig8,  281-282 

Sash  bars,  106 

Saugus,  Massachusetts,  "Scotch  House"  ("Board- 
man  house"),  //,  14,  17,  18,  20,  26,  28,  289 

Saunders,  John,  285 

Savage,  Elizabeth,  270 

Savannah,  Georgia,  Bulloch  house,  222,  22j 
Hermitage,  The,  190 

Sawmills,  35 

Scamozzi,  Vincenzo,  Ionic  capital,  no;  writings,  58, 

,   138 

Sculpture,  234 

Seaton  Delaval,  Northumberland,  72 
Sergeant,  Peter,  269 

Serlio,  Sebastiano,  designs,  160;  writings,  57 
Seventeenth-century  houses,  3-52 
Sewall,  Samuel,  27 
Shadwell,  Virginia,  169 
Sharpe,  Horatio,  291 
Sheathing,  29-30 
Sheldon,  John,  271 
Shingles,  25 

Shirley,  Virginia,  "(5,  77  note 
Shirley,  William,  284 

Shute,  John,  "First  and  Chiefe  Groundes  of  Archi- 
tecture," 57 
Shutters,  27,  108-109,  121-122 
Sideboards,  155 
Sidelights,  216-217,  218 
Silsbee,  Nathaniel,  288 
Sion  House,  Islesworth,  162 
Slate,  40,  144 
Slave  quarters,  190 
Smibert,  John,  55 
Smith,  Alice  R.  H.,  xix 
Smith,  Jabez,  287 
Smith,  John,  4,  35 
Smith,  Landgrave  Thomas,  45  note 
Smith,  Richard,  Jr.,  271 
Smith,  Sydney,  273 
Smith's  Fort,  Virginia,  Thomas  Warren  house,  j<9, 

^  4i>  43.  44'  47.  50.  289 

Soane,  Sir  John,  204-205,   222,   230;   "Plans,"   168, 

2  r2 

Somerville,  Massachusetts,  Enoch  Robinson  house, 

178 
Spatial  forms,  152,  163-168,  234,  235,  237-239 
Spencer,  John,  Jr.,  277 


312 


INDEX 


Sprague,  Ralph,  6 

Srairs,  i6,  70,  72,  74,  75,  77,  78,  112,  128-132,  155- 

156,  164,  235-237,  239,  252-254 
Standard,  Mary  Newton,  views,  loo-ioi 
Starr,  Thomas,  12 
Steele,  John,  275 
Stone,  36-37;  chimneys,  26;  houses,  35,  37,  64-65, 

152-153 

"Stone-end"  house,  32 

Stoneleigh  Abbey,  Warwickshire,  96,  g~ 

Stories,  height,  82-83,  192;  number,  81-82,  igo-192 

Stratford,  Virginia,  64,  6/,  71,  79,  So,  86,  loi,  11  j, 
117,  118,  289 

Strickland,  William,  175,  187 

Stuart,  Sir  John,  271 

Stucco,  cornices,  243-245;  exterior,  52,  68,  153;  in- 
terior, 132-136;  ornaments,  st-f  Composition 

Sturgis,  John,  xvii 

Stuttgart,  Solitude,  162 

Sunbursts,  247 

Surbase,  240 

Swan,  Abraham,  publications,  60,  123,  124,  125,  141 
note 

Swash  turning,  no,  130,  253 

Swedes  in  America,  8 

Symmetry,  in  plan,  75-76,  78,  92;  lack  in  seventeenth 
century,  17 

Symonds,  Samuel,  11,  25,  26,  274 

Tarr\'town,  New  York,  Sunnyside,  259,  289 

Tayloe,  John,  III,  170 

Temple  form,  145,  146,  152,  158-160,  161,  178-189, 

192,  194,  216,  229,  260 
Terraces,  189-190,  194 
Thatch,  4,  5,  6,  12,  25,  34 
Thomas,  Gabriel,  quoted,  44 
Thomaston,  Maine,  Henry  Knox  house,  165,  203, 

289-290 
Thornton,  William,  146,  156,  168,  169,  170,  180,  212, 

224,  231,  233,  246,  247,  248,  291,  292 
Thoroughgood  house.   Princess  Anne  County,  Vir- 
ginia, 50 
Thorpe  Hall,  Northamptonshire,  48,  54,  82,  86,  89, 

90 
Throgg's  Neck,  New  York,  Anderson  house,  1S4,  189 
Thurston,  Enoch,  278 
Tile,  40,  44 

Titcomb,  Benaiah,  278 
Topsfield,  Massachusetts,  Capen  house,  15,  1 3,   17, 

18,  20,  21,  28,  2g,  ji,  32,  290 
Town,  Ithiel,  184,  228  note,  278 
Transoms,  102,  212,  216,  217-218,  219 
Tryon,  William,  277 
Tuckahoe,  Virginia,  6-,  6S,  71,  86,  102,  109,  114,  115, 

117,  118,  122,  128,  I2Q,  130,  131,  290 
Tucker,  George,  182 
Tuckerman,  Mrs.  Edward,  269 
Turner,  F.  J.,  views  on  frontier  significance,  7-8 
Turner,  John,  288 


Tuthill,  Louisa  Carolina,  xvii, 
Tyler,  L.  G.,  views,  39  note 


259 


University  of  Virginia,  190;  colonnades,  194;  pavil- 
ions, 1/6,  111,  179-180,  187,  216,  220,  224,  225, 
227,  230,  234,  246 

Upjohn,  Richard,  xviii,  265 

Usher,  John,  275 

Vanbrugh,  Sir  John,  72,  159 

Van  Cortlandt,  Frederick,  280 

Van  Ness,  John  P.,  291 

Van  Rensselaer,  Stephen,  265 

Vardy,  John,  publications,  58 

Vaughan,  Samuel,  248,  276 

Vaults,  238-239 

Vaux-le-Vicomte,  162 

Venice,  Library  of  St.  Mark,  192 

Verandas,  165,  168,  172,  222-223,  224 

Veren,  Sarah,  287 

Versailles,  192 

Vicenza,  Basilica,  192;  Villa  Rotonda,  75?,  160,  161, 

/7^.  194 
Vignola,  Giacomo  Barozzi  da,  writings,  57,  138 
Villa  rotonda,  153,   160-161,  172,  174-175,  177-178 
Virginia,  first  houses,  5,  8;  frame  houses,  9-10,  24 
"Vitruvius  Britannicus,"  58,  150,  159 
Voussoirs,  210,  215 

Wainscot,  29-30,  114,  115-117,  132 

Waite,  Ezra,  270 

Waldo,  Daniel,  292 

Waldo,  Samuel,  284 

Wall  surfaces,  92-93,  199-201 

Wall-paper,  240 

Walter,  Thomas  Llstick,  187,  265 

Waltham,  Massachusetts,  Gore  house,  153,  156,  765, 

189,  212,  213-214,  2iS,  2ig,  220,  233,  2j^,  237, 

249,  231,  253,  257,  290 

Lyman  house,  166,  189,  20J,  204,  240,  241,  243, 
245,  290 
War  of  1812,  258,  259;  of  Greek  Independence,  183- 

^185 
Ward,  John,  289 
Ware,  Isaac,  writings,  58,  132 
Warren,  John  Collins,  269 
Warren,  Thomas,  289 
Washington,  D.  C,  Belleview,  290 

Brentwood,  238 

Capitol,  181,  228 

Decatur  house,  239,  252,  290 

Mason  house,  Analostan  Island,  192 

The  Octagon,  i6g,  201,  214,  220,  231,  2jj,  240, 
243,  246,  247,  248,  253,  290 

President's  house,  designs  for,  167,  777,  174.     See 
also  White  House 

Tudor  Place,  156,  168,  170,  189,  212,  222,  291 

Van  Ness  house,  149,  154,  155,  156,  770,  174,  212, 
221,  227,  230,  236,  291 


INDEX 


White  House,  153,  154,  155,  156,  I59^  164,  189, 
194,  200,  203,  213,  224,  225,  229,  291.  See 
also  President's  house 

Washington,  George,  26,  133,  146,  174,  248,  276,  284 

Washington,  Lund,  133 

Watertown,  Oakley,  165,  291 

Wattle,  21,  22,  30;  huts  of,  6 

Waverly,  Mississippi,  175 

Weather-boarding,  12,  22-24 

Webb,  John,  54,  82,  86 

Wedgwood  ware,  256 

Welles,  Arnold,  269 

Wellford,  Robert,  258,  259 

Wentworth,  Sarah,  283 

West  Newbury,  Massachusetts,  Indian  Hill,  270 

Westfield,  Massachusetts,  107 

Westover,  Virginia,  73,  75,  79,  86,  87,  91,  92,  loi, 
103,  104,  no,  112  and  note,  115,  117,  118,  125-126, 
128,  130,  133,  134,  138,  29«| 

Wethersfield,  Charles  Churchill  house,  no 

Whipple,  John,  274 

Whitaker,  Alexander,  9 

Whitehall,  Maryland,  77,  78,  79,  100,  lOl,  106,  117, 
120,  291,  292 

Whitfield,  Henry,  273 

Whitfield,  Nathaniel,  273 

Wigwams,  English,  4,  5,  10  note 

Wilbury  House,  Wiltshire,  54 

William  and  Mary  College,  xvii 

Williams,  Elijah,  272 

Williams,  John,  272 

Williamsburg,  Virginia,  Governor's  Palace,  74,  75, 
76,  78,  80,  136,  132,  159,  292;  proposed  remodel- 
ling, 132 

Wilton,  Wiltshire,  115 

Winchester,  Silas,  273 


Winders,  30,  235 

Windows,  27-28,  48-50,  92,  104-108,  120-121,  199, 
200,  205,  206-216,  239;  arched,  209,  210;  case- 
ment, 50,  52;  circular,  209;  double-hung,  49,  55; 
French,  212;  Palladian,  91,  108,  208,  209,  210-211; 
segmental,  104,  209;  semicircular,  205,  208-209; 
triple,  211-212 

Windsor,  Connecticut,  25 
Stoughton  house,  22 

Wings,  188-189 

Winslow,  Edward,  6,  27 

Winthrop,  John,  18,  25,  29,  35 

Winthrop,  John,  Jr.,  11,  37 

Wisconsm,  189 

Wood,  houses  of,  9-35,  63,  152,  153;  supposed  in- 
fluence on  Colonial  proportions,  no 

Wood,  Robert,  publications,  152 

Woodberry  Forest,  Virgina,  169 

Woodlawn,  Virginia,  86,  189,  201,  206,  210,  221,  25c, 
252,  253,  257,  292 

Woodward,  Augustus  B.,  185 

Worcester,  Massachusetts,  188 
Simeon  Burt  house,  292 
Stephen  Salisbury'  house,  292 
Daniel  Waldo  house,  292 

Wotton,  Sir  Henry,  "Elements  of  Architecture,"  56 

Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  33,  53,  55,  104,  no,  130,  138, 

ISS 
Wyatt,  Benjamin,  56,  57,  279 
Wynnestay,  Pennsylvania,  37,  64 

Yarmouth,  Massachusetts,  12 

Yonkers,  New  York,  Philipse  manor-house,  72,  119, 

I33<  138-139 
Yorktown,  Nelson  house,  67 
Young,  Alexander,  views  on  log  houses,  7 


314 


V^ 


,'^'' 


M;0F-CA! 


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